<div class=Satanism: An interview with Church of Satan High Priest Peter Gilmore
" />

Satanism: An interview with Church of Satan High Priest Peter Gilmore

Monday, November 5, 2007

In the 1980’s and the 1990’s there were multiple allegations of sexual abuse of children or non-consenting adults in the context of Satanic rituals that has come to be known as The Satanic Panic. In the United States, the Kern County child abuse cases, McMartin preschool trial and the West Memphis 3 cases garnered worldwide media coverage. One case took place in Jordan, Minnesota, when children made allegations of manufacturing child pornography, ritualistic animal sacrifice, coprophagia, urophagia and infanticide, at which point the Federal Bureau of Investigation was alerted. Twenty-four adults were arrested and charged with acts of sexual abuse, child pornography and other crimes related to satanic ritual abuse; only three went to trial with two acquittals and one conviction. Supreme Court Justice Scalia noted in a discussion of the case, “[t]here is no doubt that some sexual abuse took place in Jordan; but there is no reason to believe it was as widespread as charged,” and cited the repeated, coercive techniques used by the investigators as damaging to the investigation.

One of the most visible Satanic organizations—though one that was never a suspect or charged in any of the Satanic Panic cases—is the Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey. Members of the Church, such as Peter H. Gilmore, Peggy Nadramia, Boyd Rice, Adam Parfrey, Diabolos Rex, and musician King Diamond, were active in media appearances to refute allegations of criminal activity and the FBI would later issue an official report debunking the criminal conspiracy theories of this time.

Gilmore feels Satanists are often misunderstood or misrepresented. LaVey’s teachings are based on individualism, self-indulgence, and “eye for an eye” morality, with influence from Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand; while its rituals and magic draw heavily from occultists such as Aleister Crowley. They do not worship—nor believe in—the Devil or a Christian notion of Satan. The word “Satan” comes from the Hebrew word for “adversary” and originated from the Abrahamic faiths, being traditionally applied to an angel. Church of Satan adherents see themselves as truth-seekers, adversaries and skeptics of the religious world around them.

On a windy October day in Central Park, Wikinews reporter David Shankbone sat down with the High Priest of the Church, Peter H. Gilmore, who has led LaVey’s congregation of Satanists since his passing in 1997 (he became the High Priest in 2001). They discussed the beliefs of the Church, current events, LaVey’s children and how Satanism applies to life and the world.

Contents

  • 1 Theistic Satanism (‘devil worship’)
  • 2 Church of Satan 101
  • 3 On current events and politics
  • 4 Religious and Satanic symbols
  • 5 The Iraq War: A Satanic perspective
  • 6 On New York City
  • 7 Marilyn Manson
  • 8 On the church after Anton LaVey
  • 9 Anton LaVey’s children and estate
  • 10 Sources
Posted in Uncategorized
<div class=MetLife to acquire Travelers Life and Annuity from Citigroup
" />

MetLife to acquire Travelers Life and Annuity from Citigroup

Monday, January 31, 2005

Metlife announced on 01/31/05 that they were going to acquire Travelers Life and Annuity from Citigroup. Travelers Life and Annuity is an insurance underwriter. MetLife is a large life insurance and annuities underwriter. MetLife will have to borrow a lot of money to pay for the company, so rating agencies like S&P warn that the AA credit rating of MetLife might be lowered. This would cause the interest rates at which all of MetLife’s debt must be repaid to increase.

Citigroup committed to continue distributing Travelers life insurance and annuities through its Smith Barney stock brokers, Primerica agents, and Citibank branches.

Citigroup was previously known as Travelers Insurance before it bought Citicorp. First the Property and Casualty business of Travelers was spun off, and now the life insurance division has been sold off. This is primarily because insurance underwriters get a lower price to earnings multiple from the stock market because of the cycles and uncertainty associated with the insurance business. Also, having an insurance underwriter and a bank together does not usually create “cross-sell” opportunities, because consumers and businesses almost always buy life insurance and annuities through brokers who have a duty to give them other options. Citigroup will continue to sell insurance through its brokers as before.


Posted in Uncategorized
Top 10 Free Online Advertising Campaigns That Really Work!

Top 10 Free Online Advertising Campaigns That Really Work!

By S.L. Stapylton

Have you ever wondered how you could advertise your website, product, or business entirely for free? There is no real need to be paying huge amounts of money to pay per click advertising companies when there are so much free advertising opportunities available on the internet.

Aside from submitting your website URL to search engines and implementing your Meta tags correctly, you will need to apply successful advertising strategies to generate quality traffic to your website. Below are some of the most popular options I recommend for successful traffic generation;

1. Write Articles.

Write short articles and post them on free article directories (like this one) or www.isnare.com. For a few dollars you can purchase distribution credits and once your article has been approved; isnare will submit your article to hundreds of article directories saving you a lot of time.

2. Get other people to become affiliates for your website or product.

There are many people around the world who want to make money online and a popular way of doing so is to become an affiliate for other online businesses. The affiliate will advertise your product/s on their website and you decide the commission rate you wish to offer to your affiliates. Affiliates are paid only for actual sales, so your marketing expense is 100% effective. You can either set up your own affiliate program or simply use a specialized company such as Clickbank. There is a $50 once off joining fee, but all of your affiliates will advertise your product/s free of any costs to you. You don’t need to worry about keeping track of sales your affiliates make because Clickbank handles all the tracking, accounting, and payouts automatically. Selling your digital products via ClickBank is a great way to increase your online sales. If you sell products that are not digitally delivered, you can use a popular company called Commission Junction. Commission Junction is a global leader in the online advertising channels of affiliate marketing and they are free to join.

3. You Tube (free video posting site).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r7haVfZXek[/youtube]

Advertising correctly is essential for the success of an online business. YouTube.com is one of the best ways to receive high quality traffic to your website and it is completely free! YouTube is currently the 3rd most visited site on the internet today closely behind Google and Yahoo search engines! If you do not have a video camera, you can simply use your regular digital camera (if it takes video footage) or the video camera on your mobile phone! If you are a little more experienced, you can also use a flash player to create your videos. You would be missing out massively if you did not take advantage of You Tube as it is literally a free search engine in itself!

4. Sell Advertising space on your website.

Banner ads are one of the most effective forms of advertising online. Selling advertising space on your website can in-turn pay for your Google AdWords completely; practically making your pay per click advertising free if done correctly! You need to make sure that you sell the space on your website to companies that relate to your business and that they are not your competitors. For more information on ‘banner advertising’ you can visit: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/banner-ad8.htm or http://www.bannerreport.com/html/resources_tutorials.php.

5. MySpace and Facebook.

Free popular social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace offer an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, blogs, personal profiles, photos, groups, music and videos for people internationally. Millions of people use these social networking websites everyday to keep up with friends, advertise their business or product/s, or to establish an expert authority on certain subjects.

6. Create a Squidoo lens.

A lens is basically a fancy word for webpage. You can create a lens to promote your business, website or product at Squidoo.com for free.

7. Post an ad on Craigslist.

Posting an ad on Craigslist.org is completely free. The only downside to this option is that you may need to resubmit it every two weeks or so but it is well worth it!

8. Advertise in blogs and forums.

The important thing is to choose blogs or forums that relate to your product. This may take a little time to get accustomed to the different forums. It is important to follow the rules; failure to follow rules can result in entries being removed or you could even be terminated from writing anymore entries by the blog administrator. Doing this successfully can inturn increase your web traffic greatly and best of all, it’s all for free and only people looking for that type of product will come to your site. This will give you a higher chance of a greater sales conversion rate.

9. Write a Press Release.

Submitting an online press release will be one of the most important marketing strategies you can do to improve the quality of traffic to your website. At Free-Press-Release.com they will distribute your press release to news engines and search engines immediately for free!

10. Free Online Business Directories.

You can advertise your business or website on free online business directories. The more directories you can list your business on; the more likely people will find your website.

If you apply all of the above free advertising strategies together, you will then be well on your way to dramatically increasing the amount of quality traffic to your website in no time. The more traffic directed to your website; the more converted sales, leading to more money in your bank account. There is no need to waste your time and money on pay per click advertising, when you can be receiving loads of traffic to your website for free.

If you would like more information on advertising your business or website for free, I highly recommend ‘How To Use The Internet To Advertise, Promote, And Market Your Business Or Website With Little Or No Money’ by Bruce C. Brown. This book is a must have resource for all webmasters and online business owners.

About the Author: S.L. Stapylton is a young mother of two, entrepreneur, online business owner, and self published author of ‘How to Build a Website Fast’. Discover for yourself the safest and most lucrative ways to make money online by visiting

TheUltimateInternetMillionaire.com

or email her at

support@theultimateinternetmillionaire.com

Source:

isnare.com

Permanent Link:

isnare.com/?aid=319846&ca=Marketing

<div class=Wikimania 2007 begins in Taipei, Taiwan
" />

Wikimania 2007 begins in Taipei, Taiwan

Friday, August 3, 2007

This article mentions the Wikimedia Foundation, one of its projects, or people related to it. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.

The third annual conference for users of the Wikimedia Foundation projects, Wikimania, began today in Taipei, Taiwan. Over 1,100 people registered from 98 countries. Fifty-five percent of attendees were from Taiwan. There are over 100 presenters holding a total of 65 sessions.

Florence Devouard, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, in the opening to the conference, reviewed what has been accomplished in the past year. Among the accomplishments are the creation of the Wikimedia Taiwan chapter, and the creation of Wikiversity. Florence also said that the Russian Wikipedia was the fastest growing Wikipedia, with the Chinese Wikipedia coming second. There still is huge disparity in language though, with projects such as the Afrikaans Wikipedia having 6 million native speakers, but less than 8,000 articles

An estimation of the current total assets of the foundation was stated to be around $3.5 million. Florence Devouard also discussed the need for scalable sources of revenue for the foundation. These sources, she stressed, must be consistent with the foundation’s non profit status, with the open/free content movement and with community wishes. Potential revenue sources include the continued sale of live datafeeds, a print on demand service, board games, puzzles and other merchandising. She stated that the foundation will not sell DVDs or paper versions due to legal risks.

Also, Jimmy Wales, in the press conference, mentioned that in mainland China, lots of media or information is still unfree or not to be unveiled, such as Baido.com, so that may restrict the development or providing of freely contents and correct information, and is surely not a good example. And then he’ll come to visit mainland China to solve those problems of freely contents developments.

Other speakers included Benjamin Mako Hill discussing the definition of free culture, Kat Walsh on Wikimedia foundation use of free content, Samuel Klein on the one laptop per child and addressing systemic bias, Jimmy Wales, Angela Beesley and Gil Penchina on Wikia.

Posted in Uncategorized
<div class=Space Shuttle Discovery launches
" />

Space Shuttle Discovery launches

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

The NASA Space Shuttle Discovery roared into the Florida sky at 10:39AM ET (14:39 UTC), 2 weeks after the launch was scrubbed due to a faulty sensor. The launch was the start of the STS-114 mission, which is planned to be completed on August 7, 2005.

Solid rocket booster separation was triggered two minutes and five seconds into the flight after burnout of the putty-like fuel packed inside each rocket. The firing of explosive bolts freed the twin boosters from the side of the external tank, allowing them to peel away from the space shuttle. Parachutes were then automatically deployed from the boosters, allowing them to slowly descend into the Atlantic Ocean where they will be towed back to shore.

Discovery initiated the command for main engine cutoff, or MECO, at the 8-minute, 23-second mark. MECO shuts down the orbiter’s three powerful engines in the rear of Discovery after completing the “uphill” climb into space.

With the ascent into space complete and fuel in the external tank exhausted, Discovery jettisoned the orange canister. Following jettison, Commander Eileen Collins pitched the orbiter up until the tank could be sighted through the orbiter´s upper windows. Mission Specialist Soichi Noguchi then took digital photographs and video of the external tank from a distance of just 1,500 feet.

Posted in Uncategorized
<div class=Volkswagen emissions scandal may affect thousands more cars
" />

Volkswagen emissions scandal may affect thousands more cars

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

The Volkswagen emissions scandal continued yesterday with the company announcing 800,000 mainly diesel vehicles may also be affected by carbon dioxide emissions problems.

The company stated “the safety of the vehicles is in no way compromised”. They estimated potentially this could cost them €2bn on top of the €6.7bn set aside to pay for the cost of correcting 11 million cars affected when the scandal broke, in addition to fines by regulators.

the safety of the vehicles is in no way compromised

This follows Monday’s revelation that the emissions scandal has affected up to 10,000 vehicles sold in the USA by brands in the Volkswagen group, although the company refutes the allegation. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the regulatory body which has been investigating Volkswagen, claims the company fitted a number of recent Audi, Porsche, and Volkswagen models with technology that initiates secret components during emission tests to ensure the results are favourable.

The scandal began with damaging revelations that the car manufacturer has been using illegal software to enable diesel cars to cheat on mandatory emissions tests. This lead to a public apology on September 20 by then-chief executive Martin Winterkorn and the promise of an outside inquiry. He then resigned on September 23, and was replaced by Matthias Müller. The new allegation about Porsche is of particular concern for Müller, because he had previously been in charge of Porsche.

The company is expected to foot the bill for the recall of close to 500,000 VW and Audi cars affected at the time. There is also the possibility of Volkswagen having to pay federal fines of up to US$18 billion dollars because the US Clean Air Act sets a maximum fine of US$37,500 for each vehicle that contravenes the requirements of the Act.

An investigation into alleged breaches of environmental law was originally initiated on the advice of the International Council on Clean Transportation, a European non-governmental organisation. The EPA requested tests be carried out by West Virginia University, where the secret software was discovered.

The software, known as a “defeat device”, enabled cars to identify when they were being tested and to switch on the emission control system. The devices may have been adding urea to the car exhaust because that would reduce the amount of nitrogen dioxide. The car would release a fraction of the nitrogen oxide compared to when they were being driven normally. Emissions of nitrogen oxide contribute to smog and are thought to have caused a rise in respiratory illnesses like asthma.

Posted in Uncategorized
<div class=David S. Touretzky discusses Scientology, Anonymous and Tom Cruise
" />

David S. Touretzky discusses Scientology, Anonymous and Tom Cruise

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

David S. Touretzky, prominent free speech activist and critic of Scientology, discussed his opinions on the recent Internet backlash against the Church of Scientology in an interview with former Scientologist and Wikinews reporter Nicholas Turnbull. The recent conflict on the Internet between critics of Scientology and the Church has been spurred on in declarations by a nebulous Internet entity using the name Anonymous that the Church of Scientology “will be destroyed”. Anonymous has directed recent protests at Scientology centres across the world, which have attracted significant numbers of individuals supporting the cause. In recent e-mail correspondence with Wikinews, a representative of the Church of Scientology declared that the Church considers the activities of Anonymous to be illegal, and that Anonymous “will be handled and stopped”.

Touretzky, a research professor in artificial intelligence and computational neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University, has been a prominent critic of the Church of Scientology since mid-1995, and has been protesting against Scientology vociferously since then; he has also run websites that publish material that Scientology wishes to keep suppressed from the public eye, such as extracts from Scientology’s formerly-confidential Operating Thetan (OT) materials. Touretzky views the actions of the Church of Scientology as being “a threat to free speech”, and has endured harassment by the Church of Scientology for his activities.

The Church of Scientology continues to suffer damage to its public reputation through increased exposure on the Internet and vocal protests by Scientology critics such as Prof. Touretzky. A recent event that focused intense attention on Scientology’s totalitarian attitude was the leak of an internal Church of Scientology propaganda video to the Internet video sharing site YouTube, in which celebrity Scientologist Tom Cruise spoke heavily in Scientology’s jargon and stated that that “we [Scientology] are the authorities” on resolving the difficulties of humanity. The declaration of war by Anonymous followed shortly after this leak, in the form of a video posted to the Internet.

The ongoing dispute, cast by some as Scientology versus the Internet, brought Scientology terms such as “SP” (Suppressive Person, an enemy of Scientology) and “KSW” (Keeping Scientology Working) into general usage by non-Scientologists from the late 1990s onwards; increased attention has been drawn to Scientology by the release of the Cruise video in addition to media coverage. This focus has caused an even greater propagation of these terms across the outside world, as Touretzky comments in the interview.

Wikinews asked Prof. Touretzky about the impact that the activities of Anonymous will have on Scientology, the public relations effect of the Tom Cruise video, the recent departure of individuals from the Church of Scientology’s executive management, the strategies that Anonymous will employ and Touretzky’s experiences of picketing the Church.

Posted in Uncategorized
<div class=EU, US declare intent to cooperate on climate change at summit
" />

EU, US declare intent to cooperate on climate change at summit

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

A European Union-United States summit held in Slovenia produced a draft declaration outlining the groups’ future cooperation on climate change, energy security and financial stability. Yesterday was the final day of the summit, the last EU-US summit that US President George W. Bush will attend in his current role.

Hopes of a major breakthrough on the topic of climate change were low going into the summit. The foreign minister of Slovenia, Dimitrij Rupel, commented last week that, “on climate change, the positions are split.” Members of the 27-nation EU have regularly expressed their dissatisfaction with the US for not having ratified the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement with binding greenhouse gas emissions targets. Doubts about the summit’s efficacy were not misplaced, as no firm targets were set for actions on climate change.

The EU and US agreed to cooperate increasingly in science and technology research for energy and climate change purposes, including carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen fuel cells. The EU reaffirmed its commitments as per the Kyoto Protocol, but the US restated that developing countries such as China and India must be made to sign up to such global agreements before it will sign on.

Steps to secure energy sources for the future were also discussed. Promoting the creation of multiple pipelines to supply more natural gas to Europe was determined a priority, despite the fact that this would encourage an increase in emissions from gas use.

Bush commented in a follow-up news conference: “I think we can get a global agreement on climate change during my presidency – just so you know.”

Posted in Uncategorized
<div class=Sea lion walks from beach into Pantai Inn in California
" />

Sea lion walks from beach into Pantai Inn in California

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

  • 1
  • 2
  • 1
  • 2

Last Tuesday early morning, a sea lion walked from the beach into Pantai Inn in La Jolla, California. The animal was rescued by local animal rescue authorities. Wikinews took an interview from Shane Pappas, a General Manager of the inn.

((Wikinews)) At what time of day did the sea lion enter the Inn?

Shane Pappas: Surveillance footage shows that our sea lion friend made her way onto our property at approximately 5:45am on Tuesday morning. She waddled through our courtyard and climbed up onto one of our lounge chairs.

((WN)) How long did he stay in the Inn before he was moved out of the building?

Shane Pappas: The sea lion was not seen by our staff until about 6:30am. At that point my front desk agent Veronica made frantic calls to the authorities to find someone to come rescue the sea lion. By the time we got a hold of Sea World they were able to come and rescue her at around 9:45am. All told the sea lion was here for about four hours.

((WN)) What do you think attracted the animal? Was it the radio sound? Was it heard as far as the beach?

Shane Pappas: We’re not sure what attracted the sea lion. We like to think that it was the beauty and relaxation of our courtyard. In regards to the radio sound I’m not sure what you are referring to.

((WN)) Who and how transported the animal out of the building?

Shane Pappas: A gentleman named Bill who is a rescue worker with Sea World came out to rescue the pup. He asked if I would assist in the rescue which I was more than happy to do. It’s not every day that you get to rescue a sea lion.

((WN)) Where was the animal transported to?

Shane Pappas: The sea lion was loaded into a crate on a truck and transported back to Sea World. She will be kept there for six weeks so that she can be nursed back to health and returned to the wild.

Posted in Uncategorized
<div class=Airborne sedan smashes into dental office in Santa Ana, California, US
" />

Airborne sedan smashes into dental office in Santa Ana, California, US

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

A car accident involving the car occupants and a dentist’s office happened on Sunday night in Santa Ana, California. A white Nissan sedan which was apparently driving too fast hit the raised concrete median on the road, after which it was launched into the air, slamming straight into the wall of the second floor of a two-story dental practice building, where the car got wedged.

According to the police, the car approached from a side street. The room of the dental office penetrated by the sedan was used as a storage space. A fire department crane was used to extract the vehicle from the building, which took several hours.

There were two people in the sedan. One of them managed to escape from the hanging vehicle on his own, while the other one remained trapped inside it for over an hour. They were both hospitalized with minor injuries, according to the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA). According to the police, the driver of the car admitted narcotics use, and after toxicology tests the case is to be submitted to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

The moment of the accident was captured by surveillance video from a bus which the car narrowly missed when becoming airborne.

According to OCFA spokesperson Captain Stephen Horner, there was a small fire after the crash, which was extinguished quickly.

Posted in Uncategorized