An anonymous commenter's missive in response to yesterday's post on Hugh Spencer's Master's thesis on the Church of Scientology and science fiction is some of the dumbest disinformation I've seen yet.

The commenter (using an IP address in Melbourne, Australia) tells ridiculous, easily falsified lies — for example, claiming that the Associated Press called Spencer "the 20th century's answer to Glenn Beck," which would be a neat trick, given that Spencer's thesis was published two years before Beck's first on-air job at a small radio station in Texas. The commenter also claims that McMaster University threw out Spencer's thesis — another patent falsehood that is revealed by the fact that the document is currently in McMaster's online archive of successful Master's theses.

I don't know whether anonymous-of-Melbourne is working for the Church of Scientology, but this kind of disinformation campaign does the Church and its supporters no good. If you want to make the faith look like a sinister cult that viciously attacks its critics rather than addressing the criticism, consider yourself successful.