Produced as a response to The New Yorker‘s scientology takedown from earlier this year, the special issue is 51 glossy pages long, comes with a three disc DVD series, and, according to the New York Times‘ Media Decoder blog, ”goes to surprising lengths in attempting to discredit The New Yorker and its staff, naming editors, fact-checkers and others who worked on the Scientology article by name.” Sounds impressive, actually! And explains why it took them six-months to strike back.

The New Yorker, speaking to Yahoo’s The Cutline, says that they are “confident in Lawrence Wright’s reporting and our fact-checking process. And we stand by the story we published.” And they probably should: as was reported when Lawrence Wright‘s door-stopper of a story came out in February, the magazine spent an inordinate amount of time fact-checking the skewering feature.

Scientology spokesman Mark Rinder shed some light on the art project, explaining to Village Voice editor (who happens to be well versed in the church’s ways) Tony Ortega that with it, “They’re hoping that you or me or Larry Wright will see this and simply give up.” He says something about a tendency towards panic and turmoil in the ranks of the church, but seems mostly to believe that the issue was made for the fun of Church of Scientology leader, David Miscavige: “He looks at them and chuckles. And he has spent hours and hours talking about the New Yorker and Larry Wright and Paul Haggis and Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder. And it’s all transcribed. And it gets distributed around to all the minions in OSA or wherever, and they then try to do what COB [Miscavige] said. So he effectively wrote half of that.” So that’s that — chuckles all around!

(h/t New York Observer)

Maher added “I think Glenn Beck is (segueing) from what he was, mostly a political preacher, to a preacher preacher. It is an easier gig and you make more money, you know, Jim Bakker kind of money.”

The organizers of Go Topless 2010 wants the law books to specifically promise “constitutional equality between men and women on being topless in public.” To let their cause be known, they have planned protests in nine American cities over this summer. At these protests, all of the women will go almost topless (they wear fake nipple stickers over their actual ones to protect themselves from the laws they’re trying to overturn) while the men all wear bras and bikini tops.

Now, here’s where the story gets awesome. Well, awesomer. From AOL News:

“Although Go Topless is focused on the laws in the U.S., its roots are, well, extraterrestrial in origin.

Both Gary and Abdulla are members of the Raelian religion, which believes that humans were created by advanced scientists known as the Elohim. The group is best known for its close ties to Clonaid, a human cloning company that claimed in 2002 to have created the first cloned human baby.

They say their beliefs in ETs are inspiring them to fight to make the right to bare breasts as fundamental as the right to bear arms.

‘All life on Earth is created by advanced scientists,” Abdulla said. “We have no reason to be shy about our bodies. They are works of art.’”

Before you go comparing them to that other big extraterrestrial religion, Scientology, the Raelians would like to point out that they are different in many ways, including the fact that they don’t charge followers to learn their beliefs. If they really wanted to make the distinction though, they should just point out that Scientologists rarely have topless protests. Raelians for the win.

Now, while I support the Raelians in the freedom to practice their super-intelligent design religion (learn more here) as well as their fight against America’s close-minded puritanism when it comes to sex, there’s one problem with this protest I’d like to point out. Does anyone else think it’s a little insensitive of the Raelians to hold their Go Topless day in Miami Beach, just blocks away from the Great Wet T-Shirt Tragedy of 1984? I mean, I have nothing against the Raelians. This isn’t prejudice at all. It’s just a matter of sensitivity.

Read more about the protest at AOL News and watch the video below. Warning, it does contain semi-NSFW fake areolae on top of real breasts. (via Reddit):

The Church of Scientology and journalists do not get along very well, it’s fair to say. Hard-hitting investigative reports with titles like “Inside Scientology” have become fast-track ways for journos to prove themselves; just a few weeks ago, a spokesman for Scientology stormed off the set of Nightline when Martin Bashir asked him about Emperor Xenu.

But in a cash-starved journalistic environment, Scientology may have the upper hand; a Church of Scientology magazine is hiring investigative reporters.True/Slant’s Matt Stroud noticed this job posting on JournalismJobs from Freedom Magazine, which is published by the Church of Scientology:

Company: Freedom Magazine

Position: INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER NEEDED

Location: Clearwater, Florida

Job Status: Freelance

Salary: Negotiable

Description: Freedom Magazine is looking for experienced investigative reporters for short and long-range assignments. Freedom, published by the Church of Scientology since 1968, covers human rights and social betterment issues and does investigative reporting in the public interest. Projects for this particular assignment are in the Tampa Bay, Florida area for the most part, but investigation can be conducted by phone and through Internet research.

It’s also on Indeed (via JournalismJobs) and Tampa Bay Jobs.

Past investigations by the magazine have included anti-psychiatry exposés and a 9,000 word rebuttal of the St. Petersburg Times‘ investigations of the Church of Scientology, about 7,000 of which criticize them for not interviewing the leader of Scientology.

(True/Slant via Romenesko)

Martin Bashir incited him to leave with a series of questioning, starting with “Do you believe that a galactic emperor called Xenu brought his people to earth 75 million years ago and buried them in volcanoes?”

It might seem like a pretty simple yes/no question, but Bashir was asking about a part of Scientology scripture derived from the writings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and kept secret from the non-Scientologist public and even some Scientologists who don’t rank high enough, we think.

Davis was noticably upset as soon as Xenu entered into the questioning, telling Bashir:

“Ok, Martin, I am not going to discuss the disgusting perversions of Scientology beliefs that can be found commonly on the Internet and be put in the position of talking about things that are so fundamentally offensive to Scientologists … that’s all.

But Bashir persisted, citing his responsibilities as a journalist. Soon enough Davis stormed out, and Nightline cut hard to Bashir in the studio, who doesn’t bat an eye behind the Nightline desk: “When we come back, the future of celebrities in the church.”

Martin Bashir interviews Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis on ABC’s Nightline (starts at 3:40), via TV Newser: