Above, the Church of Scientology finally realizes that the best way to deal with a bunch of cyber protesters whose primary agency of attack is YouTube is to start posting videos yourself.

"Anonymous—Hate Crimes & Terrorism Directed at Scientology," posted by a Church-affiliated user known as "AnonymousFacts," is twice as glossy as anything put out by Anonymous but only half as effective. After all, claims that Anonymous is "dangerous" sort of fall flat given that most protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful. Come to think of it, the only act of violence we can remember is some poor dude in Ohio getting hit by a bus, and the Church's reaction to that wasn't exactly sympathetic.

Another Scientology effort to clamp down on Anonymous also hit a snag. The Church had filed an injunction to limit tomorrow's planned protests outside of Church headquarters in Clearwater, Florida, but it was thrown out by a judge who claimed that the relevant Florida statue does not apply to corporations.

Meanwhile, the scrappy Anonymous underdogs keep on trucking along. Yesterday, they posted emails from Mark Kaplan of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a Scientology-backed anti-psychiatry group, in which Kaplan requests that members not vote for Clearwater mayoral candidate Rita Garvey because she is an "SP." (Another Kaplan email mentions CCHR's support for former crazy presidential candidate Ron Paul because of his efforts to make it illegal to use federal dollars to perform mental health screenings.) All well and good, but a violation of federal law which dictates that tax-exempt organizations such as CCHR "may not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."