Hooked On Reading

I appreciate that the Academy for Psychic Studies is so damn desperate for attention, they have to start giving their poison away for free.

Take a look at this ungodly mess found on the official SRF web site:

Appreciation Reading Day
June 26 • 12-4pm

First Reading is Free • Healings are Free!

Also...
Clairvoyant Training Open House at 1pm
Learn the Language of the Soul!

It looks to me that the gateway drug pushed by these street dealers is starting to lose its glamor to
their usual victims and no one is paying for a sack anymore.  So like the drug dealer hanging out at your local elementary school, they are giving away a free taste.  Free, that is, until you come back asking for another hit.  Well those cost money, you know. In fact, those readings cost some sixty bucks for the same old crap.

And like that street dealer, the good stuff is reserved for the new customers.  The full-on, unadulterated stuff that gets the hapless victim hooked a dime bag at a time is gradually replaced with junk that is stepped-on with more and more of who-knows-what, causing the victim to crave more and more and more. In time, the end is always the same: addiction.

Once you have been shot up with piles of dime bags on your own, the Academy for Psychic Studies will push you into the elite Clairvoyant Training Program and allow you unfettered access to the crack house they keep on Ellsworth Street in Berkeley.  All they will ask of you is a few thousand of your dollars, a few hundred hours of your time and one or more of your children.  You are allowed to sign over your assets when your cash runs short.  Aren't they accommodating?

At the beginning of the month you'll pay a couple of hundred for a hit of psychic heroin to dull the pain of dumping your first paycheck into the SRF cesspool.  Later, you'll pay a few hundred more for the crystal meth of psychic readings and workshops designed to keep you awake for days, running in circles.  At the end of the month, few hundred more for the weekend hit of Ecstasy called a Spiritual Retreat.  After you crash the following Tuesday (as happens with all Ecstasy highs) you will look forward to repeating the cycle of intoxication next month.

I'm not sure I can say much more.  Just as street drugs have no redeeming social value, neither do the services offered by the Spiritual Rights Foundation.  And like street drugs, you are better off without it, than falling for a free teaser.

There are so many of us who have fallen victim to the wily charms of this dangerous cult.  I have said over and over that dozens, hundreds of people have lost thousands of dollars of their hard-earned paychecks, lost assets such as their homes and inheritances and even lost their own children and spouses.

That's no exaggeration.  Just Google the Spiritual Rights Foundation.  If you don't see references to "Spiritual Perversion" and the Ross Institute's collection on SRF's scandalous background, someone has tampered with your computer.

Why haven't more spoken?  So many of us are too frightened by the experiences, silenced by shame or intimidated by the warm and nurturing hooligans in that crack house on Ellsworth street that speaking out is impossible.  It's up to the courageous such as the three brave fathers who fought the Spiritual Rights Foundation for the welfare of their children - and won.  It's up to me, who repelled an unlawful and unfounded lawsuit by the Spiritual Rights Foundation intended to silence the truth.

This blog has withstood the test of time and the Spiritual Rights Foundation's blatant disregard for lawful behavior so I will tell you to keep your eyes open and your hand over your wallet.

If that little voice in your head says "Run, Spot, Run!", listen.

IP Follies

Someone having a grudge decided to leave a couple of comments on my mirror site.  I'm posting them here so you can see what they said.

Their comment:

Anonymous said...

assholes get buried by their own bullshit
Michael KAWAHARA. 351 PAYNE AV. Campbell , CA. (408)248-1070
June 6, 2010 1:59 PM

Obviously, that is someone who is attempting to intimidate and silence me and everyone who reads this blog.

Whoever this is, he or she wants us all to believe their feeble skills at Google are sufficient to find an address and phone number. Even then, he didn't really get it right. The city is WRONG.

Unfortunately for this person, some years ago I made the decision to publish my home address and phone number publicly.  My reasoning is so those who want to contact me can find me and if some dork like this one wants to intimidate me by showing me he can pick up the information I deliberately posted publicly, he would do no more than show he is skilled at pissing himself.

Of course since I defeated the intimidation tactics employed by the Witches of Ellsworth, I am not too worried about this guy even though his thinly-veiled threat must be addressed.

I do have an ace up my sleeve.  IP information is not considered "private" as the passing of IP's is essential to the operation of the internet and it is passed along to all web pages and blogs every time you open a web page.  There is also no such thing as an "unlisted, private" IP address.  As I've said on the top right of each blog page (and I have said this for over a year) I have an IP tracker so I know who is reading.

Especially the guys who leave threatening, terroristic or just plain weird comments.

I'd say the above qualifies, wouldn't you?

I did leave a reply, though.  Here it is:

Mike Kawahara said...

Your IP address, sir or madam:
Jun 6 01:59:50 PM
Chrome 5.0 WinVista
San Leandro, California, United States
Sbc Internet Services (69.106.58.230)

My, that's the same IP as on another idiot comment. My psychic abilities are sensing a pattern...

June 8, 2010 6:16 PM

Now, don't worry if your comment doesn't threaten anyone or if you are just reading.  I delete the IP addresses collected continually.  If there is no need to keep the IP address, it's gone.

This person didn't stop with the above. He or she previously left the following in response to a comment I left on another blog:

Anonymous said...
"Actually, a diagnosis is an opinion. The relevant facts (you know, like symptoms that are empirically available) lead to that opinion. Go to your doctor or watch an episode of "House" if you don't understand. I hear the next episode is a good one."

Without a doubt you are the most arrogant prick I have ever met. Why do you keep talking down to people? Feeling smug and superior?

June 7, 2010 5:38 PM

My response is pretty much the same:

Mike Kawahara said...
Your IP information, sir or madam:
Jun 7 05:38:10 PM
Chrome 5.0 WinVista
San Leandro, California
Sbc Internet Services (69.106.58.230)

All page views are recorded and IP information is logged. The IP address of annoying or unacceptably aggressive comments are preserved.

Have a nice day.

June 8, 2010 6:10 PM

I have to assume this person is the same as the guy who is being a pest on that other blog.  The IP addresses are the same and besides, he tracked me down from the other blog to this one.  Actually, he tracked me down to the mirror site and left comments there.  No one reads that site and it is hopelessly out of date.  So, as that is all obvious, why post there?  Someone working with their brain would have taken the time to note that I operate two blogs and that this one is the more active and read site.  Why not post those threats here, where so many can see them and cower in fear?

Besides, I pale in comparison to the arrogant pricks I've met.

One of my professors, for example.  This commenter must live a pretty sheltered life if I top his arrogant prick list.

Besides, diagnoses are indeed opinions.  The medical profession will tell you that.  I found that out one day when a physician was explaining that I had diabetes, described all the treatment required in detail and that the prognosis was less than hopeful until his resident pointed out he was reading the wrong fucking chart.  The physician said "Well, shit.  You'd have diabetes if this were you." I thanked him and said I'd like a second opinion.

If this commenter is of the SRF-ie bent, then it's amazing he engages in the kind of juvenile, unprincipled and ill-mannered behavior that SRF and their ilk claim they never display: when confronted with the unreasonable nature of their claims or the unsupportable logic of their "truth", they come back with the only thing they have left: sticking their tongues out while they give the finger and fart.

Certainly if I deleted this person's comment, it would not be censorship as I am not a government agency or representative thereof and this is a private forum where the right to remove comments prevails.  Although I have never "censored" comments I do remove comments that are unquestionably pecuniary or may be a threat to any person. 

I wouldn't even be denying a deleted commenter's First Amendment rights as anyone can create their own damn blog to spew whatever they wanted to say about me.

Of course, as long as that spew is commentary and makes statements of factual events in good faith it is legal.  Otherwise, the First Amendment cuts both ways.

So, now we appear to have another passionate follower. Or two!  And as always, sunshine is the best disinfectant.  I'll put him, her or them in the sunlight for your opinion.

And as you ponder your response, keep the eternal sunshine of your own conscious mind and enjoy the life you were meant to lead.

I'll continue to keep those like the above at bay so you may enjoy the pleasure of freedom.