Belgium may be suing the Church of Scientology!

"A Belgian prosecutor recommended after a 10-year investigation that the government prosecute the church of Scientology. The church is accused of being a criminal organization involved in extortion, fraud, unfair trading, violation of privacy laws, and unlawfully practicing medicine. Both the Belgian and the European branches of the church should be brought to court, according to the authorities. The investigation was started in 1997 after former Scientologists complained about intimidation and extortion by the church. Other European countries such as Germany have problems with Scientology, but in the US it is officially recognized as a religion. Scientology has 10 million members including high-profile followers such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta."

Since news feeds can be kinda ephemeral, the rest of the article is under the cut.

The article: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gDbHIiu78StkRGSY4VEMRVqtlfXA
Slashdot thread: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/04/1812244

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For the crafty amongst us: ever considered sewing a typewriter?

What can you say.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/08/artist-sews-typ.html

Improving ground-based telescope images

VERY dramatic quality in images!

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/09/creating-eyegla.html

Man arrested in Ohio for not letting a Circuit City employee check his bag as he was trying to leave

Of course it's a little more complicated than that, he was arrested for failure to give a cop his driver's license even though he wasn't operating a vehicle. The charge was then changed to basically obstructing an officer in the performance of his duty. It later turns out that the cop did not read him his Miranda Rights.

The guy, Michael, was defending his civil rights. The cop didn't know the law, and the Circuit City manager was an officious prig. At least that is how it appears.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out in court.

http://newsite.michaelrighi.com/2007/09/01/arrested-at-circuit-city/

Plans for the New Mexico Space Port unveiled

This is going to be cool. I hope it comes together, New Mexico is a very poor state and the increase in tech jobs is always good.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/070904_virgingalactic_spaceport.html

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/04/2221227