We got a little confused by the International Dateline and what not -- hey, you try converting Sydney time to New York and see if it doesn't leave you dizzy -- so that big story we were promising today won't be here for another 18 hours or so. In the meantime, we have this short video we pieced together from Saturday night's "raid" of the Scientology org on 46th Street near Times Square.

Four years after Anonymous launched Project Chanology and showed up outside Scientology orgs around the world, the local lunatics are still at it.

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​Scientologists don't really have a Sunday service. They like to say that they do, because they crave mainstream acceptance. But unless Xenu rested after six days and L. Ron Hubbard just forgot to mention it, there's no reason for Scientologists to treat Sunday any differently than every other day of coursework, detoxes, fundraising, and generally clearing the planet.

So here at the Voice, we've come up with a Scientology Sunday tradition of our own, and we call it Sunday Funnies! Our sources regularly send us Scientology's wacky and tacky fundraising mailers, and each week we choose three of them to gaze upon, hoping that it inspires you to wax eloquent in our comments section. So here we go...

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"And you say these policy letters are infallible?"

​Things back at the underground bunker are peaceful and calm -- the cats dig the new scratching post, we hear, and they're finally getting some quiet time while we're on the road frantically trying to keep up with Scientology's ongoing implosion.

Things started out quietly enough as we began another week with some Sunday Funnies that continued a Star Wars theme Down Under. Then we kicked things up a notch with another big Monday investigative feature, this time about Scientology's secretive Church of Spiritual Technology. In a rare interview with a former CST employee, we provided detailed maps to all five locations of the church's bizarre underground vaults in California, New Mexico, and Wyoming, where archives of L. Ron Hubbard's writings are stored to survive a nuclear war.

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We can't remember a time when the attorneys of the Church of Scientology gave up on a case like they did today when they withdrew their request for a temporary injunction that would keep Debbie Cook and Wayne Baumgarten under a gag order until the church's lawsuit against them could come to trial.

That trial may still happen, but for now Cook and Baumgarten are free to talk to the press. So several reporters sat down with them Friday to talk about where they go from here.

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​I'm sitting in a remarkable conference happening right now with Debbie Cook, her husband Wayne Baumgarten (pictured above), their attorney, Ray Jeffrey, and several other journalists.

It's just a few hours after the Church of Scientology surprisingly waved the white flag and dropped its attempt to keep Cook and Baumgarten gagged. Speaking with other journalists who have covered Scientology for many years, we could not remember another time when Scientology -- which has such an aggressive, litigious history -- simply gave up like this.

I'll provide excerpts as we go along. I'm typing as quickly as I can!

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​We're heading down to the courthouse now to begin talking to folks before the action heats up again.

Yesterday afternoon, Bexar County district judge Martha Tanner said that she'd begin day 2 of the temporary injunction hearing at 9:30 am, CST.

If you're just joining us, the Church of Scientology is suing one of its former high-ranking officials, Debbie Cook, and her husband, Wayne Baumgarten, who live here in San Antonio. Cook was something of a legend inside Scientology, and for many was the "face" of the religion. But her final couple of years, she testified yesterday, featured confinement and degradation on an almost unbelievable scale. She says she gladly signed a draconian non-disclosure agreement and accepted $50,000 in payment simply in order to get away from the church. Then, this past New Year's Eve, she sent out an e-mail to thousands of her fellow church members, complaining in part about how Scientology, under leader David Miscavige, is too focused on "extreme fundraising."

The church sued two weeks ago, saying that by sending out that e-mail, she'd violated her agreement. The church was granted a temporary restraining order which has run out, and is now seeking a temporary injunction that would keep Cook gagged until a trial could be held. Ironically, that resulted, yesterday, in Cook testifying to horrible things she never even brought up in the e-mail. So much for gagging her. Her testimony, under questioning from her attorney Ray Jeffrey, will continue this morning, and we'll be there, giving you live updates...

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​NOTE: This is our regularly-scheduled Friday morning feature about L. Ron Hubbard aboard the Apollo. Our second day of reporting from the Debbie Cook hearing begins soon. Please check back for that coverage.

In November we started a new feature here on Fridays: the Voice has obtained hundreds of copies of L. Ron Hubbard's previously unpublished "Orders of the Day," which he gave to crew members as he sailed the Mediterranean. Our documents cover the period from late 1968 through 1971, and this time we're looking at what was happening the week of February 5 through 11 during those years.

After the jump, Hubbard explains the heartwarming reason behind freeloader debts...

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​What an amazing time we had reporting from the Bexar County Courthouse today as Debbie Cook testified in the lawsuit filed against her by her former employer, the Church of Scientology.

We got back to our hotel room and saw for the first time the amazing comments left by our loyal readers. (Our Internet connection in the courtroom was very limited.) Good to see that this day seemed to have as much impact for so many of you as it did for us.

I won't go over everything that happened today. Please revisit our live updates from the hearing, or read excellent stories by the Tampa Bay Times and the San Antonio Express News.

In this piece, I'd just like to share some thoughts about how the case is going, from my totally unscientific, legally untrained, and I'm-doing-this-fast-because-I-want-a-margarita perspective.

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​Update: For a wrap-up of today's hearing and some analysis of the day's performances, we now have this new piece.

Today, former Scientology executive Debbie Cook will try to convince a Bexar County, Texas district judge to lift the strict terms of a temporary injunction as she defends herself against a lawsuit filed by her former employer. The Church of Scientology is seeking a minimum of $300,000 in damages against Cook and her husband, Wayne Baumgarten, after Cook sent out an e-mail on New Year's Eve to thousands of her fellow church members, criticizing church leader David Miscavige for Scientology's focus on "extreme fundraising."

After 17 years as Scientology's top executive running its spiritual mecca in Clearwater, Florida and then some time in California, Cook left Scientology's "Sea Org" in 2007. She and her husband, who also left the Sea Org, signed non-disclosure agreements (for which they were paid $50,000 each), and moved to San Antonio. Cook left staff, but didn't leave the church, and bided her time until her New Year's Eve salvo proved a major crisis for the organization.

Scientology filed its lawsuit two weeks ago and was granted a temporary restraining order which prevents Cook and Baumgarten from talking about the case. That TRO runs out today, and will be replaced with a temporary injunction which will keep the gag order in place throughout the life of the lawsuit -- unless Cook and her attorney, Ray Jeffrey, can convince a judge otherwise.

The Voice is on the scene this morning in San Antonio, and we'll be doing our best to bring you updates throughout the day.

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Gerry Armstrong knew this was coming...

​Tomorrow, one of the most remarkable legal hearings in the litigious history of Scientology should unfold in a Texas courtroom.

Two weeks after filing suit against Debbie Cook, the former executive who for 17 years ran its spiritual mecca in Florida, Scientology will be seeking to turn a 14-day restraining order into a temporary injunction that will keep a gag order in place as it sues Cook for a minimum of $300,000 in damages.

Scientology is suing Cook for sending out a New Year's Eve e-mail to thousands of her fellow church members in which she complained that the church, with its focus on "extreme fundraising," has wandered from the principles of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. The church claims in its lawsuit that Cook's e-mail was a violation of a non-disclosure agreement she signed in 2007, when she left her position on church staff and accepted a payment of $50,000. Cook, we believe, will attempt to introduce evidence that she signed the agreement under duress after her career in Scientology's "Sea Org" had become unbearable (we have previously written about homophobic hazing Cook was made to endure, and we hear that she is prepared to present evidence of far worse treatment).

In other words, things could get pretty ugly in Bexar County's civil court chambers tomorrow.

While we wait for the fireworks to begin, we thought back to the past, when Scientology had previously sued because someone dared to speak out about the church's unsavory secrets.

So we gave Gerry Armstrong a call.

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