LAWRENCE WRIGHT: The Church was always looking for an exemplary figure that would represent Scientology to the world, a shining celebrity that would give credibility and attention to the Church. He's their symbol. He’s the most important Scientologist, except L. Ron Hubbard, there ever has been. He's their main pitch man. It’s his close friend, David Miscavige, who runs the Church. It’s Tom Cruise, who benefits materially from the labor of these impoverished Sea Org workers who have built him an airplane hangar for his airplane collection and handcrafted a limousine for him and surround his household staff and cook his dinners.

BOB GARFIELD: And, if you're right, pimping him a girlfriend.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: You know, he was breaking up with Penelope Cruz and he let it be known that uh, he wanted another girlfriend, and they auditioned a number of different Scientology women, and they came upon a very attractive Iranian-American. Her name was Nazanin Boniadi, and they told her that they had a mission for her. And they put her in the Celebrity Center, away from her family, and they took her shopping in Beverly Hills for a new wardrobe. They fixed her hair. They fixed her teeth. And then they took her to New York. There she found the object of her mission was Tom Cruise. She moved in with him, lived with him for a while and then went in with him in his hideaway in Telluride. David Miscavige and his wife came, and one night they were talking, and [font color=blue]Miscavige speaks in a kind of rapid Philadelphia brogue and she couldn't quite understand him. And so she, a couple of times, asked him to repeat himself.

And the next day everybody was inflamed with her, the way she treated the leader of the Church.[/font] And after that, Cruise decided to have nothing more to do with her, and [font color=darkred]she went off to Clearwater, Florida, the spiritual headquarters. She was made to clean out a garbage dumpster and clean a public toilet with a toothbrush[/font]...

http://www.onthemedia.org/story/265094-going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-prison-belief/transcript/

http://www.onthemedia.org/story/scientology-and-film-critics/

The founder of 5-hour Energy drinks has quietly made millions in political contributions

Manoj Bhargava isn't a household name, but a report from the [font color=blue]Center for Public Integrity says the Michigan-based billionaire’s campaign contributions rival the Koch Brothers'.[/font]

Bhargava is the founder of 5-hour Energy drinks. Since 2009, he’s made about $5.3 million in state and national campaign contributions through his Michigan-based companies.

In 2014, Bhargava’s investment firm [font color=darkred]ETC Capital gave $2.5 million to the Republican Governors Association, a donation that placed him among the group's top five donors.[/font]

Ben Wieder is a data reporter at the Center. He said Bhargava has worked hard to keep his political activities under wraps...

http://michiganradio.org/post/energy-drink-founder-pours-money-politics

‘Three Days of the Condor’ to Be Remade for TV

Posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2015 by Russ Fischer

"When someone mentions “paranoid ’70s thrillers” as an inspirational set of films, one of the movies they’re talking about is Three Days of the Condor. (Anthony and Joe Russo, for example, namechecked it often in the runup to Captain America: The Winter Soldier.)

Sydney Pollack’s original film featured Robert Redford as a low-level CIA analyst whose entire office cohort is murdered while he’s out at lunch; he spends the rest of the film eluding his own death while trying to figure out what’s going on. And now David Ellison’s Skydance Productions, which backs the Mission: Impossible and new Star Trek films, is developing a Three Days of the Condor remake for TV...

http://www.slashfilm.com/three-days-of-the-condor-remake/

General Curtis LeMay: You're in a pretty bad fix, Mr. President.

President Kennedy: What did you say?

General Curtis LeMay: You're in a pretty bad fix.

[font color=darkred]President Kennedy: Well, maybe you haven't noticed: You're in it with me.[/font]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146309/quotes