John Gabriel's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory, by Penny Arcade

I wasn’t following it at the time so this may not be news to anyone, but apparently the Obama administration’s Citizen’s Briefing Book – a collection of policy ideas submitted electronically by American citizens in the lead-up to the Inauguration – showed some interesting results. 44,000 proposals were floated by members of the public, and these garnered 1.4 million votes.

In the middle of two wars and an economic meltdown, the highest-ranking idea was to legalize marijuana, an idea nearly twice as popular as repealing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy. Legalizing online poker topped the technology ideas, twice as popular as nationwide wi-fi. Revoking the Church of Scientology’s tax-exempt status garnered three times more votes than raising funding for childhood cancer.

(My emphasis.)

Much as I like the democratic potential of electronic voting, I am worried about possible abuses of the system, although it does seem to be going well in the European countries and American states it’s been implemented in. I’m sure none of the usual safeguards were in place in the Citizen’s Brief, however.

There are certain themes netizens will usually return to. One of these is the legalisation of marijuana. Another is an antagonism of Scientology

… the Internet’s openness allows well-organized groups to simulate support,to “capture and impersonate the public voice,” as [James Fishkin, a Stanford political scientist] wrote in an e-mail exchange.

As we’ve seen time and time again, John Gabriel’s Internet Dickwad Theory will almost always apply (the image above is a T-shirt version of this strip).

Anand Giridharadas ‘“Athens” on the Net‘, New York Times (12/9/09)

Raëlians at the Love Hug Festival in Seoul (30/4/06), from the gallery at Raelian.com

Maybe that Raël guy isn’t so bad after all.

Amercian Raëlians have been promoting the GoTopless protest day although, as it was the 23rd of August, I appear to have missed it. Never fear, however, as they’re now gearing up for a world-wide event to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the US constitution’s 19th amendment (suffrage for women).

Raëlians, probably the world’s premier UFO religion, often advocate equal rights for women, and generally have a much more relaxed attitude to sexuality. I still can’t quite work out why they’re campaigning so hard for this, however. Try as I might, I can’t seem to shoe-horn an Intelligent Design argument in there (Raëlians, believing Humanity to have been created by an alien race, are thus of course proponents of Intelligent Design).

Maybe I’m over-thinking it. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised that a Frenchman (and an ex-racecar driver to boot) would advocate that women should take their tops off.

Victoria Brown ‘Exercise Your Topless Right!‘, BigThink (23/8/09)

An interesting paper was presented at the recent CESNUR conference in Salt Lake City on anti-Scientology group Anonymous, and their activities on 4chan. It’s not the most polished paper I’ve ever read and it provides a glossary that explains a number of terms not referenced in the paper, but it’s definitely worth reading. I particularly liked his unfavourable evaluation of the knowledge of Scientology most critics possessed, although he doesn’t really back it up with anything.

apud John Bowen Brown ‘The Scientology Critic Group Anonymous: A Research Paper‘ (paper presented at the CESNUR Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, June 11-13, 2009)

Not “love”, as certain pundits would have you believe. You heard it here first.

So Wikipedia has banned a slew of IP’s orginating from the Church of Scientology, as well as bunch of Wikipedia editors who got involved. I wonder if they had to turn the lights on and off to break it up, and then made them sit separately.

Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw totally saved face by saying “We hope all this will result in more accurate and useful articles on Wikipedia.”

apud AFP ‘Wikipedia blocks Scientology from altering entries‘, Sydney Morning Herald (30/5/09)