A Maui Blog

A former Scientologist named Peter Letterese is suing Tom Cruise and his favorite religion for $265 million. According to Fishbowl LA, Letterese’s charges include allegations that “Cruise and Scientology bribed and improperly influenced a federal judge, a Florida state judge and a federal bankruptcy trustee to tie up his original law suit in bankruptcy court.” Those are serious charges, and there’s no word of proof, so you might be excused for thinking Letterese is a wacko. Then again, there was that earlier incident when Scientologists tried to convince Letterese’s wife that he was gay, allegedly:

Back in July, Paul Barressi, a private investigator who works for Tom Cruise, gave the Daily News court papers of Letterese’s allegations, including this:

[ex-Scientologist Peter] Letterese claims a member of the church phoned his lawyer at home, and when the lawyer’s wife answered, said he was her husband’s homosexual lover.

So you can see why he holds a grudge. [FBLA, Previously]

by Ben Protess , ProPublica - October 22, 2008 4:56 pm EDT

Tags: Wall Street, Wall Street Bailout



The U.S. Treasury Department has decided against publicly releasing key details of the contract it awarded Bank of New York Mellon to keep the books for the government’s purchase of toxic securities. In a publicly released copy of the contract, the Treasury blacked out how much it will pay the bank for its role in the government’s $700 billion taxpayer-funded bailout.

The Washington Post first briefly noticed the redactions. Meanwhile, Bailoutsleuth, a site created by Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, has been tracking the redactions and flagging more examples.

The government’s justification for blacking out the monthly fees set in the publicly bid contract aren’t clear.

“It looks like a reflexive, ‘we don’t want to tell you,’” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. “I just don’t see the rationale.”

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Objet Geometries have kindly offered us (in advance of even their own official press release going live) a tantalising insight concerning their new Alaris 30 Desktop 3D Printer which, despite its decidedly compact design, offers high resolution 600 x 600 dpi resolution 3D printing using PolyJet Photopolymer Jetting Technology to render not only full, and exceptionally detailed 3D objects but which, as is evidenced by the impressive car model sent to us (which is presently sitting on my desk), can even produce models complete with intricate, interacting moving parts.

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October 10, 2008
Peter Schiff, President and Chief Global Strategist



While I have warned for years that the United States was headed into the eye of an economic hurricane, nearly every other “expert” from Washington, Wall Street, the press and academia saw nothing ahead but sunny skies. Now, suddenly, there is an overwhelming consensus that absent the Federal mortgage bailout, my dire forecast would have come to pass. While I’m glad that rose colored glasses have finally been removed from so many eyes, the vast majority of these observers are still blind. In truth, the bailout plan substantially increases the threats to the U.S. economy.

When I wrote my book “Crash Proof”, I not only predicted that our consumer/mortgage credit-based economy would fall apart, but that the government would ineptly try to repair it. The magnitude of those potential policies formed the basis of my worst case scenario. My fears have now been confirmed, and the U.S. Government is now set to destroy all hope of economic recovery.

Make no mistake; had the government resisted the political pressure to interfere with the markets, we would now be experiencing a very deep recession. But by refusing to let the markets work, policy makers are resisting the only medicine capable of curing the economic disease that afflicts us. The same mistakes were made in the early 1930’s, causing a severe financial crisis to morph into the decade-long Great Depression.

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By Tom Burghardt
Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:15:00
(The Intelligence Daily) — While America’s attention has shifted to the economic meltdown and the presidential race between corporate favorites John McCain and Barack Obama, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Applications Office (NAO) “will proceed with the first phase of a controversial satellite-surveillance program, even though an independent review found the department hasn’t yet ensured the program will comply with privacy laws.”

As I wrote in June, NAO will coordinate how domestic law enforcement and “disaster relief” agencies such as FEMA use satellite imagery intelligence (IMINT) generated by U.S. spy satellites. Based on available evidence, hard to come by since these programs are classified “above top secret,” the technological power of these military assets are truly terrifying.

Unlike commercial satellites that beam TV programs, forecast the weather or provide global positioning services, their military cousins are far more flexible, have greater resolution and therefore, more power to monitor human activity. By utilizing different parts of the light- and infrared spectrum, spy satellites, in addition to taking ultra high-resolution photographs to within a meter of their “target,” can also track the heat signatures generated by people inside a building. (”Homeland Security’s Space-Based Spies,” Antifascist Calling, June 4, 2008)

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