Alison Pels thought she had finally escaped the grasp of the cult Kenja Communications when she left the group in February last year.

But six months later the then 20-year-old found herself the subject of a bizarre plot by Jan Hamilton and other members of the group, who disguised themselves with fake facial hair and wigs while posing as directors of a play.

Ms Hamilton was yesterday ordered by a court not to stalk, harass or intimidate Ms Pels as part of a two-year apprehended violence order, made after Ms Hamilton and Kenja members had staged fake auditions for a performance of Chekhov's Three Sisters at the West Pymble Community Hall on October 17 last year.

Hamilton's strange behaviour doesn't seem to have impressed the court or Pels' lawyer either.

Ms Pels's lawyer, Brett Longville, told the court that Ms Hamilton's actions were a sinister attempt to harass and intimidate Ms Pels for making the allegations against her late husband.

As always, Hamilton's only defence was that she's right, everyone else is wrong, the sun shone out of Dyers' arsehole and everyone is picking on her.

But Ms Hamilton's lawyer, Harland Koops, said Ms Pels was a habitual liar, who had staged the audition process and her subsequent distress in an attempt to cause serious criminal charges to be laid upon Ms Hamilton.

Oh look, there's convenient proof that they were all home baking cookies and singing campfire songs, so Hamilton must be right. It's times like this I feel that HTML is seriously lacking in the area of sarcasm tags.

He said Ms Hamilton and other Kenja members had been at her Surry Hills home on the night in question. He produced a video of the group purportedly taken on that night.

Fortunately for Pels, the judge saw through Hamilton's ham-fisted attempt at staging an alibi.

However the magistrate, Roger Clisdell, found that the video, which included a shot of a wall clock and close-up of a newspaper showing the date, was a child-like attempt at providing an alibi for those members.

He said the video as well as the hoax audition had the bizarre hallmarks of the Kenja group and he did not find any witnesses from the group, including Ms Pels's mother, Marty, to be reliable.

These people are serious wingnuts. Rather than getting on with their lives and running the business that is Kenja that they claim isn't a cult, really, they expend a huge amount of time, money and resources obsessing over the past to clear the name of an alleged paedophile. I have to wonder if the general public would even remember the allegations against Ken Dyers if they didn't insist on screeching He's not a paedophile at every opportunity. The only people who even know who he was are those who've been affected by the group in some way, but I somehow can't see the Kenja mob learned the lesson that sometimes silence can be golden.

Cult founder warned off after 'bizarre' audition ploy—Sydney Morning Herald, 27th August 2008.

Smootha Scrotal Smoother and Firmer is, according to QXMen,

firms and tones the scrotum by deeply restructuring the sking. It also stimulates cell metabolism, promotes collagen synthesis and enhances fibroblasts proliferation and, by restoring the skin's elasticity and bounce, the sperm count may also be increased.

It's interesting to note that pseudoscientific bollocks is not used exclusively to make women feel insecure, though if any of the claims were true, would it not have to be regulated as a medicine, not a cosmetic?

iBlessing ... shows a plate filled with food--no traif, of course. Clicking on the meat, fruit, bread, wine, etc., brings up the blessing you should say over the item in question. The app has additional bonus blessings as well, for events like hand washing and the after meal grace.

The other application is of no use to vegan Jews whatsoever, being to do with the prohibition on eating meat and dairy together.

ParveOMeter, counts down the amount of time until you can eat dairy after meat and vice versa. The milk to meat setting is customisable depending on how kosher you are (zero minutes to an hour), but the meat to milk timer keeps ticking for six whole hours. The app keeps you on track too, since there is no easy way to manually stop the timer.

But there's others, that Gizmodo chose not to highlight! KosherMe is

... a beautiful Bentscher for your iPhone. It puts the Blessings ("Brachot") you should say before and after eating something (including Birkat Hamazon) right at your fingertips.

Additionally KosherMe contains a (growing) number of wonderful prayers and blessings, e.g. the Complete Bedtime Shma, Tfillat Haderech and other useful blessings.

Then there's Siddur:

Take your weekday siddur with you with this feature-packed Jewish prayer book. You'll get Ashkenaz, Sfrard and Sefarad Mizrachi versions of davening, including weekday Shacharis, Mincha, Maariv, standard Brachos and more. Real time Zmanim will give you the prayer times for each day based on your location determined with the iPhone's GPS. A Minyanim database will help you find nearest shul. A Luach or Jewish Calendar will aid you in your prayer services.

... and Tehilim, which is a mobile version of the Psalms. Just remember to not use any of these between sunset Friday and sunset Saturday.

iBlessing and ParveOMeter iPhone Apps Make You a Kosher Keeping Mensch—Gizmodo Australia, 18th August 2008.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day's office sent an alert to border patrol to look out for people with signs and pamphlets consistent with the messages that the church promotes and to keep them out of the country, Winnipeg MP Pat Martin told CBC News on Friday.

Entering Canada by a U.S. citizen isn't an absolute right, and if you're coming here only to disrupt the social order and to promote what we consider to be bordering on hate crimes or hate language, they shouldn't come into Canada, Martin said.

We're not going to allow these people to compound the tragedy of the McLean family loss, and Canadians simply won't tolerate these lunatics disrupting what should be a respectful service.

Border guards to turn away church group aiming to picket bus victim's funeral—CBC News, 8th August 2008.

Meridiana Wine Estate has launched its third white wine called Astarte, inspired by the Phoenician goddess of fertility worshipped in Malta during the Punic period. Astarte is based on the Vermentino grape, a Mediterranean wine grape variety which is ideal for Malta's climatic conditions.

New wine toasts fertility goddess—Times of Malta, 7th August 2008. See also Bargain of the Day: L'Chaim!, The Prattle, 18th October 2004.

Small fire strikes Westboro Baptist—The Wichita Eagle, 2nd August 2008.

John Noyes, a Laxfield shoemaker, was burnt to death on 22 September 1557, one of 34 executed in the county for his religious beliefs.

Legend has it that almost all the villagers disagreed with his death sentence and tried to put out their fires to stop his execution.

The festival was started three years ago in a bid to remember the execution and spread the message of religious tolerance.

The message flew right over the heads of some, though.

One villager explained his opposition to the festival. He said: I felt there was a drift towards the darker side of things, such as people selling five-pointed stars and other symbols of witchcraft. It didn't uphold the values I see in life.

Just one sentence which demonstrates the need for the festival.

"Intolerant" villagers stop "tolerance" festival —The Daily Telegraph, 30th July 2008.

I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

As Cheryl comments, [p]resumably the Department of Homeland Security will be taking note, but it brings two questions to mind. Firstly, how is ensuring his children can marry regardless of the sex of their beloved stopping them from doing so? And doesn't Mormonism historically have a definition of marriage which is ever so slightly different from the one which inspires Card's violent thoughts?

A Call for Revolution—Cheryl's Mewsings, 29th July 2008, citing State job is not to redefine marriage—Mormon Times, 24th July 2008.

Three sisters, from India, who say they are on the run from the religious sect, allege they can link it to numerous crimes. The women also allege the Exclusive Brethren is involved in money laundering, immigration fraud in New Zealand and bribery of police and members of the judiciary in India.

We've got 3,000 pages of evidence ... and now we're going to expose this whole thing, one of the sisters told reporters in Canberra.

Exclusive Brethren accused of kidnapping—The Age, 29th July 2008.

The authority's Bluecoat Software computer system allows staff to look at websites relating to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions but blocks sites to do with witchcraft or Satanism and occult practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals or any other form of mysticism.

Under the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003, it is unlawful to discriminate against workers because of their religion or belief, which includes atheism.

One also wonders what Birmingham's social workers are expected to do if they have, for example, a Wiccan client, and they need to learn more about that faith in order to deal with them fairly? Perhaps they are expected to dig out those fundie dossiers from the late 80s' Satanic panic?

Council ban on atheist websites—BBC News, 29th July 2008.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, spokesperson for Westboro, told Same Same, If your government would give us a visa we would be there, but they won’t!

I haven't seen this story anywhere else other than on this Australian gay site, but the Westboro Baptist Church did issue a press release on July 12th indicating their intent to go to Australia [PDF]. This reads:

WBC to picket Catholic World Youth Day Sydney, Australia, July 20

Yes, these Roman Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals – all the way up to the Pope – have got a lot of shameless nerve, luring hundreds of kids to a sodomite island thousands of miles away, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with their reputation of molesting kids! And what kind of idiots – escapees from the funny farm masquerading as parents – will let their kids go to Fantasy Island of the Fags, masquerading as a nation called Australia?

"GOD HATES AUSTRALIA" for criminalising gospel preaching about fags. Just to quote Leviticus 18:22, (Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is an abomination), will get you arrested in fag dominated Australia.

Now, the Phelps are US citizens, and could therefore go to Australia on an Electronic Travel Authority (Visitor) (Subclass 976), assuming picketing is considered to be tourism purposes (dubious at best). But they announced their intent 8 days before the event they planned to picket, and the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship recommends you are advised to apply for your ETA at least two (2) weeks before your proposed date of travel. They also note that there is a lot of demand for visas due to World Youth Day and suggest applying before June 1st! There are limitations with respect to criminal convictions, but the civil judgement against the church wouldn't fall foul of them. Perhaps the Australian authorities were concerned that they were trying to flee their financial obligations? Without any other sources, it's impossible to even guess.

Australia: A Fag Fantasy Island—Same Same, 18th July 2008; Walls close in on Phelpses—The Topeka Capital-Journal, 4th April 2008.