QFG and SOTT.net defend Internet First Amendment rights.

It's going on and won't stop until... who knows? The arguments behind the HBI's lawsuit against the Sott alternative news site - really a good one - are just non-existent. Seems to me that it all happened just because HBI has a great deal of money to spend and if you can't stand up for the truth the first thing that the one in error does is to just sue anybody... that's my take on it, and the forum in question speaks for itself.


SOTT.net - May 02, 2008

Web Site Defendant Moves to Dismiss Defamation Suit Under Anti-SLAPP Statute

(PRNewsChannel) / Portland, Oregon - Quantum Future Group, Inc. ("QFG"), the only defendant that has been served in an Internet defamation suit brought by New-Age guru Eric Pepin's sales company, has forcefully challenged the merits of the case and has asked an Oregon federal judge for a dismissal and attorneys fees.

The case concerns postings on a forum hosted by SOTT.net (Signs of the Times), an Internet site devoted to news and analysis in various fields, including analyzing and exposing cults. Citing Oregon's anti-SLAPP ("Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation") statute, QFG contends that the statements about Pepin and his company, Higher Balance Institute, LLC ("HBI") are constitutionally protected. Because HBI cannot show that it probably will prevail, QFG argues, the case must be dismissed before QFG or the other defendants must spend large amounts to defend themselves.

"Without exception," the motion states, "the statements are all constitutionally protected expressions of opinion rather than verifiable assertions of fact. HBI cannot meet its burden to prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that the statements are false, let alone that Defendants knew that they were false or had serious doubts as to their truth."

The statements cited in QFG's complaint question Pepin's meditation techniques and comment on Pepin's 2007 trial on multiple sexual charges involving a 17-year-old male acolyte. The statements at issue include a November 7, 2007 comment that "It's really starting to look like this Eric Pepin and his Higher Balance Institute may be merely COINTELPRO and a front for pedophilia" and a November 4, 2007 comment by an anonymous poster that something "fishy" was going on at HBI.

QFG's motions state that the forum posts are opinion based on stated facts published on a mainstream news source and are constitutionally protected. The motion also argues that the operator of an Internet forum cannot be liable for the posts of third parties under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 ("CDA") and questions Oregon's jurisdiction over QFG, a California non-profit corporation whose primary place of business is in France.

"These are exactly the sort of statements that the First Amendment and recent statutes protect as free speech," said QFG attorney Stephen Kaus, who prepared the papers with his colleagues Walter Hansell and Merrit Jones. "People are entitled to believe in gurus such as Pepin and buy their books and courses for hundreds of dollars or more, but people are also entitled to point out their view that the techniques of telepathy and development of a sixth eye promoted by Pepin are nonsense."

Much of the dispute concerns Pepin's trial on charges of sexual misconduct with a minor. Pepin was acquitted in a court trial because the judge did not feel the charges had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. According to the article in the Oregonian, Washington County Circuit Court Judge Steven L. Price stated that it was, " 'probable that the conduct alleged in all counts occurred,' but he wasn't convinced beyond a reasonable doubt" and "called the leader of a metaphysical Internet sales company manipulative and controlling and his testimony unbelievable, even as he acquitted him today of charges that he had sex with an underage boy."

SOTT.NET posters point out that being found "not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" is not the same thing as being found "innocent of all charges."

The sexual charges aside, the SOTT.NET forum topic on Pepin and HBI has been the site of a lively debate on whether he is an exploiter, ever since a visitor posted an inquiry about them in 2006. Several Pepin devotees have posted fervent praise, while others have denounced him as a power-lusting cult leader who takes advantage of gullible followers.

SOTT.NET contends that it is the public's right to examine the claims of any company selling a product or service to the public and to form their own opinion as to whether it is "snake-oil" sold by con-artists or not and that those opinions may be made public for the safety of consumers.

In a previous press release, atty Walter Hansell noted: "HBI's lawsuit is a frontal assault on free speech, and on the free global flow of information and opinion on the Internet. It is a blunt force attack on the discussion of sincere opinions among people sharing common interests."

See: http://www.prnewschannel.com/absolutenm/templates/?a=423&z=4

Following the filing of the motions to dismiss on April 25th, Walter Hansell of Cooper, White & Cooper said: "The intent of this suit by HBI is to stifle free speech, but luckily the anti SLAPP statute allows us to nip the matter in the bud before the cost is out of hand."

About Signs of The Times:
SOTT.net is an independent alternative news and analysis outlet that seeks to shine a spotlight on significant events and trends that affect the entire world. SOTT.net helps bring clarity out of a sea of media spin. The site is funded entirely by donations from individuals and groups that seek to support its work. For more information visit http://www.sott.net

About Quantum Future Group:
Quantum Future Group (QFG) supports activities that bring together people to engage in and to promote the study of scientific ideas and research in all scientific and socio-cultural fields that further the deepest understanding of our world and our place within it without regard to nationality or ethnicity. QFG seeks to increase the understanding of humankind by humankind, as a whole, by sponsoring research into all the parts to see how they fit together. QFG supports documented research that is made freely and widely available to all humanity. For more information visit:http://quantumfuturegroup.org

About Cooper, White & Cooper LLP:
Cooper, White & Cooper LLP, based in San Francisco, is longtime defender of free speech and communications. For more information visit http://www.cwclaw.com/

Contact: Joseph Quinn
Email: : sott@sott.net
Phone: : +33 563 048231
Web site: www.sott.net
To view this press release online

This press release was issued by PRNewsChannel.com. For more information, please visit http://www.prnewschannel.com.

Source Web Site: SOTT.net

1968 Paradox

May 1968 - a watershed in French life

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Nanterre, France: Forty years ago, students in neckties and bobby sox threw cobblestones at the police and demanded that France's sclerotic postwar system change. Today, students worried about finding jobs and losing state benefits are marching through the streets demanding that nothing change at all.

May 1968 was a watershed in French life, a holy moment of liberation for many, when youth coalesced, the workers listened and the semi-royal French government of President Charles de Gaulle took fright.

But for others, like the current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, only 13 years old at the time, May '68 represents anarchy and moral relativism, a destruction of social and patriotic values that, he has said in harsh terms, "must be liquidated."

The fierce debate about what happened 40 years ago is very French. There is even a fight about labels - the right calls May '68 "the events," while the left calls it "the movement."

While a youth revolt became general in the West - from anti-Vietnam protests in the United States to the Rolling Stones in swinging London and finally the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany - France was where the protests of the baby-boom generation came closest to a real political revolution, with 10 million workers on strike and not just a revulsion against stifling social rules of class, education and sexual behavior.

For André Glucksmann, a prime actor then and still a famous "public intellectual," May 1968 is "a monument, either sublime or detested, that we want to commemorate or bury."

It is a "cadaver," he said, "from which everyone wants to rob a piece." Glucksmann, 71 and still with a mop of Beatle-like hair, wrote a book with his filmmaker son, Raphaël, 28, called May 68 Explained to Nicolas Sarkozy.

In a stinging campaign speech a year ago, as he ran against the Socialist candidate, Sarkozy attacked May 1968 and "its leftist heirs," whom he blamed for a crisis of "morality, authority, work and national identity." He attacked "the cynicism of the caviar left."

In 1968, Glucksmann said, "the hope was to change the world, like the Bolshevik revolution, but it was inevitably incomplete and the institutions of the state are untouched." Now, he said, "We commemorate, but the right is in power." As for the French left, he said, "it's in a state of mental coma."

For Raphaël Glucksmann, who led his first strike at high school in 1995, his generation has nostalgia for their rebel fathers, but no stomach for a fight in hard economic times.

"The young people are marching now to refuse all reforms, to defend the rights of their professors," he said. "We see no alternatives. We're a generation without bearings."

The events (or movement) of 40 years ago began in March at Nanterre university to the west of Paris, where a young French-born German named Daniel Cohn-Bendit led demonstrations against parietal rules - when young men and women could be together in dormitory rooms - that got out of hand. When Nanterre was closed in early May, the anger spread to central Paris, to the Latin Quarter and the Sorbonne, where the student elite demonstrated against antiquated university rules, and then outward, to workers in the big factories.

Scenes of the barricades, the police charges and the tear gas are dear to the French, recaptured in every magazine and scores of books, including one by the photographer Marc Riboud, now 84, called: "Under the Cobblestones," a reference to a famous slogan of the time from the leader-jester Cohn-Bendit, now a member of the European Parliament, "Under the cobblestones is the beach."

Known then as "Dany the Red" for the color of both his politics and his hair, Cohn-Bendit is also thought responsible for other famous slogans of the time: "It is forbidden to forbid" and "Live without limits and enjoy without restraint!" - with the word for enjoy, "jouir," having the double meaning of sexual climax. The injunction was especially potent in a straight-laced country where the birth-control pill had been authorized for sale only the year before, said Alain Geismar, another leader of the time.

Geismar, a physicist who spent 18 months in jail - but later served as a counselor to government ministers - wrote his own book, "My May 1968." Now 69, the former Maoist uses an Apple iPhone. He happily displays his music catalogue, which is mostly Mozart.

The movement succeeded "as a social revolution, not as a political one," Geismar said. While the de Gaulle government responded with police and mobilized troops in case the students marched on the presidential palace, the idea never occurred to student leaders, who talked of revolution but never intended to carry one out.

Most significant, Geismar said, the movement was "the beginning of the end of the Communist Party in France," which deeply opposed the revolt of these young leftists who it could not control, but who managed in important ways to break the party's authority over the big industrial unions.

French society in May 1968 "was completely blocked," Geismar said. A conservative recreation of pre-World War II society, it had been shaken by the Algerian war and the baby boom, its schools badly overcrowded.

"As a divorced man, Sarkozy couldn't have been invited to dinner at the Élysée Palace, let alone be elected president of France," Geismar said. Both the vivid personal life and political success of Sarkozy, who has foreign and Jewish roots, "are unimaginable without 1968," he said. "The neo-conservatives are unimaginable without '68."

André Glucksmann, who still supports Sarkozy as the best chance to modernize "the gilded museum of France" and reduce the power of "the sacralized state," is amused by Sarkozy's fierce campaign attack on May 1968. "Sarkozy is the first post-'68 president," Glucksmann said. "To liquidate '68 is to liquidate himself."

But there is also a fashionable absurdity to the commemoration. The designers Sonia Rykiel and Agnès B discuss their views of May 1968 in every magazine, there are documentaries and discussions on every channel and a Parisian jeweler, Jean Dinh Van, born in Vietnam, has reissued a silver cobblestone pendant he made at the time "to celebrate 40 years of liberty" - and, in his case, success. (The smallest, with chain, sells for $275.)

~*~

And here's a comment from Sott.net, which fits by means of a broader bird's view, explicating this crazy controversy:

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Again, the Protocols of the Psychopaths who wrote them, come to mind:

The Protocols repeatedly affirm that the first objective is the destruction of the existing ruling class ("the aristocracy", the term employed, was still applicable in 1905) and the seizure of property through the incitement of the insensate, brutish "mob". Once again, subsequent events give the "forecast" its "deadly accuracy":

"In politics one must know how to seize the property of others without hesitation if by it we secure submission and sovereignty. . . The words, 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity', brought to our ranks, thanks to our blind agents, whole legions who bore our banners with enthusiasm. And all the time these words were canker-worms boring into the wellbeing of the people, putting an end everywhere to peace, quiet, solidarity and destroying all the foundations of the States. . .

This helped us to our greatest triumph; it gave us the possibility, among other things, of getting into our hands the master card, the destruction of privileges, or in other words the very existence of the aristocracy . . . that class which was the only defence peoples and countries had against us. On the ruins of the natural and genealogical aristocracy . . . we have set up the aristocracy of our educated class headed by the aristocracy of money. The qualifications of this aristocracy we have established in wealth, which is dependent upon us, and in knowledge. . . It is this possibility of replacing the representatives of the people which has placed them at our disposal, and, as it were, given us the power of appointment .... .

We appear on the scene as alleged saviours of the worker from this oppression when we propose to him to enter the ranks of our fighting forces; Socialists, Anarchists, Communists . . .

By want and the envy and hatred which it engenders we shall move the mobs and with their hands we shall wipe out all those who hinder us on our way . . . The people, blindly believing things in print, cherishes . . . a blind hatred towards all conditions which it considers above itself, for it has no understanding of the meaning of class and condition. . . These mobs will rush delightedly to shed the blood of those whom, in the simplicity of their ignorance, they have envied from their cradles, and whose property they will then be able to loot. 'Ours' they will not touch, because the moment of attack will be known to us and we shall take measures to protect our own. . . The word 'freedom' brings out the communities of men to fight against every kind of force, against every kind of authority, even against God and the laws of nature. For this reason we, when we come into our kingdom, shall have to erase this word from the lexicon of life as implying a principle of brute force which turns mobs into bloodthirsty beasts. . .

But even freedom might be harmless and have its place in the State economy without injury to the wellbeing of the peoples if it rested upon the foundation of faith in God. . . This is the reason why it is indispensable for us to undermine all faith, to tear out of the minds of the masses the very principle of Godhead and the spirit, and to put in its place arithmetical calculations and material needs . . ."

". . . We have set one against another the personal and national reckonings of the peoples, religious and race hatreds, which we have fostered into a huge growth in the course of the past twenty centuries. This is the reason why there is not one State which would anywhere receive support if it were to raise its arm, for every one of them must bear in mind that any agreement against us would be unprofitable to itself.

We are too strong, there is no evading our power. The nations cannot come to even an inconsiderable private agreement without our secretly having a hand in it . . . In order to put public opinion into our hands we must bring it into a state of bewilderment by giving expression from all sides to so many contradictory opinions and for such length of time as will suffice to make the peoples lose their heads in the labyrinth and come to see that the best thing is to have no opinion of any kind in matters political, which it is not given to the public to understand, because they are understood only by him who guides the public. This is the first secret.

The second secret requisite for the success of our government is comprised in the following: to multiply to such an extent national failings, habits, passions, conditions of civil life, that it will be impossible for anyone to know where he is in the resulting chaos, so that the people in consequence will fail to understand one another . . .

By all these means we shall so wear down the peoples that they will be compelled to offer us international power of a nature that by its possession will enable us without any violence gradually to absorb all the State forces of the world and to form a Super-Government. In place of the rulers of today we shall set up a bogey which will be called the Super-Government administration. Its hands will reach out in all directions like nippers and its organization will be of such colossal dimensions that it cannot fail to subdue all the nations of the world". [Douglas Reed, Controversy of Zion]

9-11 was a good thing for us

Unbelievable! This comes directly from Haaretz... I'm still not getting how and why people dismiss what has been said over and over on 9/11 by alternative sources.


Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel

By Haaretz Service and Reuters

Meanwhile, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt over the veracity of the September 11 attacks Thursday, calling it a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names," Ahmadinejad told Iranians in the holy city of Qom.

"Under this pretext, they [the U.S.] attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then, a million people have been killed only in Iraq."

Speaking Wednesday at a news conference on the Iran threat, Netanyahu compared Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler and likened Tehran's nuclear program to the threat the Nazis posed to Europe in the late 1930s.

Netanyahu said Iran differed from the Nazis in one vital respect, explaining that "where that [Nazi] regime embarked on a global conflict before it developed nuclear weapons," he said. "This regime [Iran] is developing nuclear weapons before it embarks on a global conflict."


I can tell you, I don't like Ahmadinejad, but in this media-world ruled by propagandists I ca concede him the benefit of the doubt... So who's the real Hitler here?

The Sport Of Psychopaths - Does Cheney Hunt Human Beings?

Incredible!!! ... well, not entirely, most probably just another scenario to consider:

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[...] Is it possible that Scalia and Cheney opted to leave separately so as not to highlight the fact that someone in their party had gone missing? Since no one saw Scalia leave, then it follows that no one can confirm whether his 'daughter' left with him. And even if she did, doesn't this story, at the very least, have the makings of a good sex scandal? I mean, when two older guys and a young woman go duck hunting for a couple of days and no one brings back any ducks, people are going to talk. And if the two guys come back without ducks or the girl, then I think we could have a serious problem.

That secretive, high-security hunting outing was the first indication that maybe those hushed rumors about Cheney weren't so crazy after all. The second clue surfaced in September of 2004, when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel inadvertently published a rather, uhhh, revealing photograph of our illustrious vice president. But before discussing that further, I have to note here, for the uninformed, that the same women who have accused Cheney of having a fondness for hunting humans have also claimed that he is an unusually well-endowed man. Yes, that's right: Cheney not only is a big dick, he also allegedly has a big dick - which seems to be on display in the Sentinel photo (below).

Aspartame Can Mess Up Your Body and Brain

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Com'è strana la vita in un laboratorio analisi, eh?

"Tellingly, whether a study finds for or against aspartame seems to be intimately related to, er ... who paid for it. One online review [1] of the evidence finds that while 100 percent of industry-funded studies conclude aspartame is safe, 92 percent of independently funded research and reports identified aspartame as a potential cause of harmful effects."

Military Report: Secretly 'Recruit or Hire Bloggers'

News?! The same was and is being done with 911, and you can bet they aren't going to stop it.

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A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers."

Since the start of the Iraq war, there's been a raucous debate in military circles over how to handle blogs -- and the servicemembers who want to keep them. One faction sees blogs as security risks, and a collective waste of troops' time. The other (which includes top officers, like Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Gen. William Caldwell) considers blogs to be a valuable source of information, and a way for ordinary troops to shape opinions, both at home and abroad.

This 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University, "Blogs and Military Information Strategy," offers a third approach -- co-opting bloggers, or even putting them on the payroll. "Hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering," write the report's co-authors, James Kinniburgh and Dororthy Denning.

Lt. Commander Marc Boyd, a U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman, says the report was merely an academic exercise. "The comments are not 'actionable', merely thought provoking," he tells Danger Room. "The views expressed in the article publication are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, USSOCOM [Special Operations Command], or the Joint Special Operations University."

Denning, a professor at Naval Postgraduate School, adds in an e-mail, "I got some positive feedback from people who read the article, but I don't know if it led to anything."

The report introduces the military audience to the "blogging phenomenon," and lays out a number of ways in which the armed forces -- specifically, the military's public affairs, information operations, and psychological operations units -- might use the sites to their advantage.

Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence... to pass the U.S. message. In this way, the U.S. can overleap the entrenched inequalities and make use of preexisting intellectual and social capital. Sometimes numbers can be effective; hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering. On the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names. People do not like to be deceived, and the price of being exposed is lost credibility and trust.

An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful effect. Still, there are people in the military today who like to blog. In some cases, their talents might be redirected toward operating blogs as part of an information campaign. If a military blog offers valuable information that is not available from other sources, it could rise in rank fairly rapidly.

Denning, the report's author, has promoted controversial opinions before. In the early 1990s, when she was chair of the Georgetown University's computer science department, Denning emerged as the leading advocate for the so-called "Clipper Chip," a cryptographic device for protecting communications -- until the government wanted to listen in. The project was cancelled by 1996.

In her 2006 paper, Denning warns that blogs can and will be used by America's enemies. These sites, she argues, can also be used to serve U.S. government interests.

There are certain to be cases where some blog, outside the control of the U.S. government, promotes a message that is antithetical to U.S. interests, or actively supports the informational, recruiting and logistical activities of our enemies. The initial reaction may be to take down the site, but this is problematic in that doing so does not guarantee that the site will remain down. As has been the case with many such sites, the offending site will likely move to a different host server, often in a third country. Moreover, such action will likely produce even more interest in the site and its contents. Also, taking down a site that is known to pass enemy EEIs (essential elements of information) and that gives us their key messages denies us a valuable information source. This is not to say that once the information passed becomes redundant or is superseded by a better source that the site should be taken down. At that point the enemy blog might be used covertly as a vehicle for friendly information operations. Hacking the site and subtly changing the messages and data—merely a few words or phrases—may be sufficient to begin destroying the blogger’s credibility with the audience. Better yet, if the blogger happens to be passing enemy communications and logistics data, the information content could be corrupted. If the messages are subtly tweaked and the data corrupted in the right way, the enemy may reason that the blogger in question has betrayed them and either take down the site (and the blogger) themselves, or by threatening such action, give the U.S. an opportunity to offer the individual amnesty in exchange for information. (emphasis mine)

In Iraq, Was I a Torturer?

By Justine Sharrock, Mother Jones.

[Alternet]

When 27-year-old Ben Allbright returned from Iraq, he was treated like a hero. But he is haunted by the "harsh interrogations" he oversaw.

The prisons in Iraq stink. Ask any guard or interrogator and they'll tell you it's a smell they'll never forget: sweat, fear and rot. On the base where Ben Allbright served from May to September 2003, a small outfit named Tiger in western Iraq, water was especially scarce; Ben would rig a hose to a water bottle in a feeble attempt to shower. He and the other Army reservists tried mopping the floors, but the cheap solvents only added a chemical note to the stench. During the day, when the temperature was in the triple digits, the smell fermented. [...]

Using Tasers on Children

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Police officers must make split-second judgments in volatile situations.

But shooting children with Taser stun guns -- except perhaps in the most dire cases -- is unacceptable. In the past two weeks, however, police in Miami-Dade County used stun guns to subdue two children. ... Tasers have their place in law enforcement as an alternative to deadly force, but must not become the option of first resort when less-risky intervention tactics exist.

Considered a non-lethal tool, Tasers deliver a highly painful 50,000 volt charge. Their use has possibly contributed to a number of deaths, and their safety has never been adequately established by independent studies.

Most important, we know virtually nothing about how they might adversely affect children, who are quite different physically from adults. The Miami-Dade Police Department should issue a moratorium on using Tasers on children until the two cases are investigated and officers are retrained to react with more prudence.

[The Brown Watch]

Eric Pepin again!

Stumbled upon the last article almost by chance few weeks ago, and now Pepin's saga is taking a new turn, it's like suing a costumer of yours who got a bad prescription from you. Heck, that's crazy!

Have a look yourself...

Eric Pepin - Higher Balance Institute Sue SOTT for 4.47 Million Over SOTT Forum Comments!

Yesterday, as I was working on finishing up the next installment of the Comet Series of Articles, FedEx delivered a packet of mail from our corporate registered agent in the U.S. It was "Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial" filed in the State of Oregon by Eric Pepin's Higher Balance Institute, LLC. The reason? A discussion on the SOTT Forum that begins HERE.

Well, that was entertaining enough when you think about the fact that the discussion that he objects to was centered on several newspaper articles that describe his close calls with the legal system in Oregon over charges of sex abuse.[...]

The World's spinning badly. We call our lawyer in the same way we buy peanuts at the store... without thinking, it's such an habit, and now it's more like the latest fashion, vogue, haute couture.

Let's see how it goes.

Master Eric Messes Up

Eric J. Pepin and an accomplice are in the slammer for photographing and molesting an at-that-time 17-year-old employee of his Higher Balance Institute:

A man who is now 20 was 17 and working for Pepin when he allegedly was sexually abused at the Higher Balance office... in Beaverton and at Pepin's former home in the city.

Pepin should have stayed out of the child pornography business and just stuck to selling snake oil:

Pepin's meditation systems, which sell for $79 to $149, help customers develop their "sixth sense" and apply it "inward to awaken a dimensional universe within the mind," the Web site says.

But like many gurus who have fallen before him, Pepin just couldn't keep it in his pants:

The boy, Smith wrote, "was taught by Pepin to believe that the sexual contact was only a spiritual necessity." But after a while, the affidavit says, the boy decided he was being used by Pepin, who bought him meals and paid him $200 after sex.

An all-time classic in the lustful guru's playbook: "I'm doing this for you, kid."

We imagine "Master Eric" is about to receive some karmic "balance" of his own, in the form of a horny 300-lb. meth-chef for a bunkmate, only this time he won't get to be the master anymore.


Talking about Sexual Predators in the Religious Scene:

(complete article here).

A story in the news a few days ago brought an ugly reality to show its face again. It was yet another story of a sexual predator, who walked free from court with just a token sentence. This time it was the story of archbishop Earl Paulk from an Atlanta megachurch:

Archbishop pleads guilty to perjury
ATLANTA (AP) - Court officials say the 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge he lied under oath. Cobb County Superior Court Judge Frank Cox said Archbishop Earl Paulk of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church was sentenced to 10 years probation and a $1,000 fine for the felony charge.

Paulk turned himself in to authorities Tuesday night after a warrant was issued for his arrest the previous day. The charges stem from a deposition Paulk gave as part of a civil lawsuit against him, his brother Don and the church by a former church employee who says she was coerced into an affair.

In a 2006 deposition for the lawsuit, the archbishop said under oath that the only woman he had ever had sex with outside of his marriage was former church worker Mona Brewer.

But the results of a court-ordered paternity test revealed in October that Paulk is the biological father of his brother's son, D.E. Paulk, who is now head pastor at the church. As part of Brewer's lawsuit, eight women have given sworn depositions that they were coerced into sexual relationships with Earl Paulk.

Paulk's attorney, Joel Pugh, said he had been working with Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head for weeks on negotiating a deal.

"It was a fair and just resolution of the case for a man who has lived his whole life and done wonderful things but made a mistake," Pugh said. "He's ready to move on."

Pugh had said earlier the warrant came as a surprise to the Paulk family.
The warrant was the result of a months-long probe by Head and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Head called the sentence "certainly adequate" for Paulk, who had never been charged criminally before.

"There are a lot of allegations about things he has done over the past 15 or 20 years," Head said. "In trying to determine what is a fair sentence, I can't look at what he's been alleged to have done in other counties."

Paulk's home and church are in DeKalb County, but the deposition he gave was in an attorney's office in Cobb County.

Cox said the sentence was not unusual for someone like Paulk, who has no prior record and whose health is "frail."

Paulk has been in bad health for the last couple of years after a battle with cancer, limiting his activity with the independent charismatic church he and his brother founded in 1960.

At its peak in the early 1990s, the Cathedral at Chapel Hill claimed about 10,000 members and 24 pastors and was a media powerhouse. The church was able to build a Bible college, two schools, a worldwide TV ministry and a $12 million sanctuary the size of a fortress in Decatur outside Atlanta.

Today membership is down to about 1,500, the church has 18 pastors, most of them volunteers, and the Bible College and TV ministry have shuttered — a downturn blamed largely on complaints about the sexual scandals.

Anne Simpkinson writes in an article named Soul Betrayal - Sexual abuse by spiritual leaders from 1996:

Sometimes what psychologists call a personality disorder compels a person to exploit, manipulate, and hurt those in their spiritual care. While publicly charming, ebullient, devoted, hard-working, and inspiring, this leader proves himself cunning, slick, seductive, and cruel in private. Involved in multiple, simultaneous relationships, he can sweet-talk his victims into compliance -- "Our love is special and holy" -- or bully them into submission.

Sounds very much like the description of the common psychopath.
Robert Hare is the foremost expert today on psychopathy and the author of several books on the subject. He defines psychopathy as follows:

Psychopathy is a personality disorder described by the personality traits and behaviors that form the basis of this book [Snakes in Suit]. Psychopaths are without conscience and incapable of empathy, guilt, or loyalty to anyone but themselves.

These are some of the common traits of psychopathy:

lack of remorse or empathy
shallow emotions
manipulativeness
lying
egocentricity
glibness
low frustration tolerance
episodic relationships
parasitic lifestyle
persistent violation of social norms

Simkinson continues:

United Church of Christ minister Marie Fortune, in her book Is Nothing Sacred?, details the havoc and pain wreaked on individual women and the congregation by the sexual misconduct of one of the church's pastors. Fortune notes that sexual predators go to great lengths to choose women whose current circumstances might make them vulnerable: for instance, the death of a parent, a divorce, problems with children, or an illness. The situation that sends Fortune "over the edge" is one in which a congregant approaches a minister for help in dealing with childhood sexual abuse. Often that confidence is seen by the minister as a "green light" to seduce the person. One clergyman whom Fortune heard about told his victim that the way to heal from childhood sexual abuse was to re-enact the experiences with him. "I am amazed at the creativity that perpetrators have," Fortune says, "the manipulation of theology and scripture and ritual, the moral rationalization they bring to bear: `No, there is nothing wrong with this because God's love for you is flowing through me, and this is a holy kiss.'"

Because of the innocence and vulnerability of the victims, perhaps the most heinous crime perpetrated by sexual predators is the abuse of children. Trust, innocence, and sense of self all shatter, leaving behind shards of fear, shame, distrust, and self-loathing.

The spiritual scene provides a fertile ground for sexual predators to prey, as trust and complete faith is often given to if not demanded by the various religions leaders.