Europe really hates Scientology, which is something the Czar thinks Europeans are getting right.

Scientology was allegedly founded by L. Ron Hubbard on a $5 bet concerning how gullible people are; the Paris criminal court decided what we already know: that Scientology is a simple tool to get rich morons to give cash to people with low moral scruples. And as a result, jail time and hundreds of thousands of euros in fines for the key players in French scientology.

The French elected not to ban Scientology outright, which caught the Czar by surprise. The Germans have been trying to eradicate Scientology from their tax exemption system for decades (and that’s been working about as well as other German social eradication efforts), so the Czar initially believed the French might finally go for broke and tell Scientology to take a well-deserved hike.

Scientology charges people outrageous sums of money to hook some sort of apparatus called an electrometer to measure your possession by alien overlords. That, friends, is a claim legally testable. The explanation was a source of further surprise: if you ban Scientology outright, French Judge Sophie-Hélène Château decided, you drive it underground and it achieves special status. On the other hand, keep it legal but keep fining the crap out of it until it becomes economically difficult to profit by it.

The Czar concedes this is a very smart strategy that (a) should provide excellent precedent for other European countries and (b) could be adapted here. Let us be clear: Hollywood is divided into two faux-religions: Kabbalah and Scientology. Both have a lot of money behind them, and a dimwit like Tom Cruise would almost certainly want to belong to a banned religion as it gets you an even nicer table at The Leaping Peacock. But a cash-strapped celebrity or a celebrity still on the fringe of lost popularity might distance himself if there were criminal fines directed at Scientology elders.

Some folks are concerned that this sets some sort of dangerous precedent for other religions. The Czar does not think so. Scientology, if you pause for a moment, is not a religion. It ceased being a religion the instant it claimed your occupation by alien creatures could be measured scientifically. Roman Catholicism does not hook a voltmeter up to the Eucharist to prove transubstantiation; Judaism does not subject the Torah to an oscilloscope; Hinduism does not provide MRIs of Gonesha. Scientology charges people outrageous sums of money to hook some sort of apparatus called an electrometer to measure your possession by alien overlords. That, friends, is a claim legally testable. Religions, per se, make no claims that can be legally tested.

Scientology is a scam, always was, and is now recognized as fraud. This is already a safe and tested precedent here in the States: you can prosecute psychics, mediums, astrologers, and palm readers for bilking people out of their money. Scientology is on the same level as this nonsense.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.