Hey California!

     When you go to vote on Oct 7th, look at the machine they ask you to vote on. If it bears the Diebold label, you will be voting on a machine with 300+ security errors, 26 of which are critical flaws that could result in your vote being corrupted, changed, or to quote the report: "The result of a successful attack could result in voting results being released too soon, altered, or destroyed. The impact of exploitation could lead to a failure of the elections process by failing to elect to office, or decide in a ballot measure, according to the will of the people. The impact could be a loss of voter confidence, embarrassment to the State, or release of incomplete or inaccurate election results to the media."
    You will have absolutely no way of knowing that the vote you cast will be for the person you chose.
    If the machine fails, your vote is GONE, there is nothing for them to recount. Ever work on an e-mail when your computer crashed? That's what will happen to your vote.
    Diebold knows about these flaws, but is not going to fix them. They will fix them in Maryland, but not in California. Why?
    Good question.
    Okay, what if Diebold fixes the problems like they did in Maryland, will we be safe?
    We don't know. Only 40 pages of the 200 page report were made available to the public by the Maryland government. Apparently, the voters can't be trusted with such top secret data as:
    - What version of the software is being used.
    - How votes will be counted.
    - The name of the Windows product running on the voting machines.
    Lots of other stuff in the report have been censored, entire sections and appendices in fact. Doesn't this just fill you with confidence?
    And remember, all this secrecy is for your own good.

- Diebold has shut down blackboxvoting.org but blackboxvoting.com is still up, as is How to Hack an Election -

Letter of the Week

     We, Air Force pilots who were raised on the values of Zionism, sacrifice, and contributing to the state of Israel, have always served on the front lines, willing to carry out any mission, whether small or large, to defend and strengthen the state of Israel.
    We, veteran and active pilots alike, who served and still serve the state of Israel for long weeks every year, are opposed to carrying out attack orders that are illegal and immoral of the type the state of Israel has been conducting in the territories.
    We, who were raised to love the state of Israel and contribute to the Zionist enterprise, refuse to take part in Air Force attacks on civilian population centers. We, for whom the Israel Defense Forces and the Air Force are an inalienable part of ourselves, refuse to continue to harm innocent civilians.
    These actions are illegal and immoral, and are a direct result of the ongoing occupation which is corrupting all of Israeli society. Perpetuation of the occupation is fatally harming the security of the state of Israel and its moral strength.
    We who serve as active pilots - fighters, leaders, and instructors of the next generation of pilots -- hereby declare that we shall continue to serve in the Israel Defense Forces and the Air Force for every mission in defense of the state of Israel.

Signed: 

Brigadier General Yiftah Spector, Colonel Yigal Shohat, Colonel Ran, Lieutenant Colonel Yoel Piterberg, Lieutenant Colonel David Yisraeli, Lieutenant Colonel Adam Netzer, Lieutenant Colonel Avner Ra'anan, Lieutenant Colonel Gideon Shaham, Major Haggai Tamir, Major Amir Massad, Major Gideon Dror, Major David Marcus, Major Professor Motti Peri, Major Yotam, Major Zeev Reshef, Major Reuven, Captain Assaf, Captain Tomer, Captain Ron, Captain Yonatan, Captain Allon, Captain Amnon

- Translated by Gila Svirsky, Jerusalem -

Israel has, of course, not only vowed to punish them, but is hiring Russian immigrant soldiers - many of whom are veterans of fighting in Chechnya - as snipers to guard Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories.

"May it be Your will, O God, and God of our ancestors, that this year be a year of plenty, of trade, of rain, warm weather, and dew, and that Your people Israel will not be dependent upon one another."
- Prayer of the High Priest when he departed in peace from the sanctuary on Yom Kippur: Jerusalem Talmud, Yoma 5:3 -

Woo-Hoo

Hundreds of tourists from Tokyo held a two-day orgy with Chinese prostitutes on the eve of the anniversary of the Imperial Army's invasion of Manchuria in 1931.

Film Review of the Week

With all the scorn being heaped upon Bob Dylan's new film, it's interesting to hear from someone who says it's great. "Not ten minutes after the opening credits I could see why the film had been marked for assassination by big newspaper media critics. They are the villains of the piece!" says David Vest.

Shockwave Game of the Week

If you agree that David Blaine's latest magic trick is not only neither magic nor a trick, but pretty much self-serving, idiotic, and genuinely insulting, you might want to shoot David Blaine and send him to hell.

MP3 from God

"I returned to Jerusalem and found out, that according to legend God inscribed there letters of sacked alphabet with help of the sounds, placed them in a circle, linked them together into words and with those words created our world. I also wrote down these letters in a circle, linked them together and saw that the lines connecting the letters resemble musical strings, and that any interval between any two letters corresponds exactly to one of the twelve notes of the musical score. Then, I opened the Bible, and, as if stretching strings among the letters, translated the words of creation into musical sounds. I have not changed a single note, not a single letter. I just imagined that the fingers of my hand, like the creative forces of God, touch these strings and extract the sounds of creation from the chaos and emptiness." 
- Alex Shtrai: Sounds of Creation - 

Calling All Monty Python Fans

Well you've got to wonder what it would be like to edit The Pythons: Autobiography, so check out this interview with Bob McCabe.

Me and

or
Things I Normally Leave Off My Résumé

     I delivered sandwiches and salads for Marsha's Sandwiches from 1970 to 1972 because they gave me the coolest route, the Sunset Strip from Vine to Doheny. My first day they gave me baskets of sandwiches and a list of businesses on the strip that regularly bought from them, including hair salons, record companies, production companies, and anyplace else I might care to check out along the route, all the way from the Whiskey to the Cinerama Dome.
    Thus I was afforded the perfect excuse to burst into any establishment I pleased as long as I had my wicker basket full of goodies. Burst I did, gathering two other jobs in the process, getting fired from both, and ending up back selling sandwiches.     My first gig courtesy of Marsha's Sandwiches was receptionist for Cinemobile. It lasted two weeks until the president of Cinemobile returned from Europe and discovered to his horror that his new receptionist didn't have tits. I was immediately canned and replaced by someone of a different gender, and I went right back to delivering sandwiches.
   Next was Casablanca Records, the home of Cher, Donna Summer, The Four Tops, Parliament, and The Village People. Neil Bogart, the president of Casablanca, gave me a job because he clearly couldn't get rid of me without buying a sandwich or hiring me. I wanted him to listen to my music. I wanted a recording contract. I got the mail room, where it was my duty to send out promo copies of records and to help promote this new comedy group from England. Their hit show had never been shown in America, so they were total nobodies. All they had were these comedy albums that were the funniest I had ever heard. Casablanca had just bought the American rights and was breaking Monty Python's Flying Circus to America. I watched it happen.
    They were sold purely through word of mouth, and I sent hundreds of copies of the LPs to everyone on earth we thought had a sense of humor. Everyone liked them, though there was no airplay at all and little sales.
    Just to test the waters, in August of 1972 a compilation film of some of Monty Python's best TV bits was put together for the American market. It was called And Now For Something Completely Different, and it had the Dead Parrot, the Lumberjack, and the Upper Class Twit of the Year. Casablanca brought the whole group over for their American press premiere, so they spent a day hanging out at the office. There were no pictures of them on their records so I didn't know what to expect. Bearded madmen, not neatly cropped normal looking guys in business suits. Cleese, Chapman, Gilliam, Idle, Jones, and Palin all in matching gray suits and ties, crammed in the mail room making fun of me. They seemed totally stunned that ANYBODY in America got what they were doing. I not only got them, I had them memorized. It WAS the right room for an argument. I ran out of Monty Python albums for them to sign, so I got them to sign albums of all the other Casablanca artists. They signed my copy of Jack (The Artful Dodger) Wild's solo album but later it was accidentally sold by a roommate under circumstances too painful to discuss.
   The first press screening of And Now for Something Completely Different was introduced by Graham Chapman, who apologized for all the obscure references in the film while casually mentioning that then president Nixon couldn't attend the screening because he was having an asshole transplant. Eric Idle ran down the aisle and handed Chapman a piece of paper. Chapman then announced that they had just gotten word from the hospital where Nixon was staying and that "the asshole had rejected him." And the film began.
   Months later I was not so much fired as the whole company went under. Apparently Monty Python was no Village People. My quest for songwriting fame bought me a day with the reigning geniuses of comedy, then I was back to delivering sandwiches.

Tales of Airport Security

Venezuelan Military Intelligence says there's overwhelming evidence the CIA planned to bring down Chavez Frias' airplane en route to United Nations in New York.

Tales of Rosh Hashanah

Hank Rosenfeld tells a story about being enlightened by and falling in love with a Torah-aerobics instructor.

I Feel So Much Safer Now

Top scientists recently told governmental nuclear power regulators that floating paint chips have a one-in-three chance of clogging a key pump and causing disaster at an American nuclear power plant by 2007. The response: fix the problem by 2008.

Schoolchildren under 16 are being encouraged to experiment with oral sex as part of a Government drive to cut the rates of teenage pregnancy. The advice is being offered to more than 100,000 pupils nationwide in a new sex education course, backed by the Departments of Education and Health.

As of next March, all Levi's jeans will be made outside America.

Cartoon from Hell

- Not Banned Yet -

History Lesson from Hell

The United States vs. The Spirit of 1776
By Denis Mueller

    All Robert Goldstein wanted to do was make a movie. Instead, he ended up in court and finally in prison. Goldstein moved to Los Angeles in 1913. His family ran a successful costume business out east so he opened up a branch on the west coast. In 1915, he supplied D.W. Griffith with the Civil War costumes for Griffith's film, "Birth of a Nation". Goldstein also invested in the highly successful production and soon set out to form his own production company.
    Goldstein wanted to enter the movie business with a bang so he raised about $200,000 and filmed his epic, "The Spirit of 1776", a historical drama about the American Revolution. With a cast of thousands, 20,000 to be exact, he created the most expensive movie of his day. It began production in 1916, but with the advent of WWI and the subsequent United States involvement, Goldstein's life was about to change dramatically. 
    Goldstein began shooting in the fall of 1916. During this time, American banking interests began to drag the U.S. into the European conflict. When war was finally declared, there was great opposition. The anti-war forces experienced fierce repression from the government. In Ohio, two thousand people were rounded up after participating in an anti-draft demonstration. In Chicago, the police department raided an anti-draft rally in Grant Park. To counter legitimate dissent, the Wilson administration set out to stifle all opposition to the war. The Espionage Act of 1917 was passed by Congress while Robert Goldstein prepared for the opening of his film.
    Goldstein wanted to cooperate with the police so he submitted his film to the Chicago Police Department. The police decided the film was anti-British. What they were thinking about is hard for anyone to determine since this was, after all, a film about the American Revolution. The fact that we revolted against the British did not deter the Chicago Police Department, who in their infinite wisdom, could not understand these simple historical facts. 
    "The Spirit of 1776" ran for three weeks and was a stunning success. Crowds loved it and while some critics called it a "rambling picture", others, such as the L.A. Daily News, called it the "most startling picture of the year." Goldstein was elated by the film's success, but his optimism was short lived. The American Protective League, a vigilante group, with the support of the Wilson administration, seized the film. 
    The Wilson administration claimed that Goldstein had made the film with the expressed intent to aid the German enemy, never-mind that Goldstein had started the film before the war started. In their courts, the trial began on April 3, 1918. It was listed, ironically, as The Sprit of 1776 Vs The United States Government. Goldstein was convicted on April 29, 1918, and was sentenced to twelve years in prison.
    After the German defeat, Woodrow Wilson reduced his sentence to three years. Goldstein was released early in October of 1920 after spending a year and a half in prison for his film. He tried to get back into the movie business but to no avail. Goldstein drifted into poverty and obscurity after his release,but what happened to him should not be forgotten. 
    It is an example of how leaders like Woodrow Wilson and the courts are far from perfect. Wilson was not an idealist. Wilson was a man who went to war to defend the investments of the Morgan bank, instituted segregation within the federal government and carried on the worst abuses of civil liberties in the history of the United States. Wilson wanted to make the world safe for democracy, yet within his own country he fought against free expression. Wilson, the liberal, was no idealist but was one of the worst presidents in American history.

Source: Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States.

Petition of the Week

The U.S. Justice Department has sued Voices in the Wilderness in federal court to try to collect a fine from them of $20,000 for bringing medicines to the people of Iraq. Sort of like suing the Red Cross. Their petition says "I ask that you, Mr. Ashcroft, and the attorneys of the US Justice Department decline to ask the court for a civil judgment against Voices. I suggest instead that you join with me and numerous other VitW supporters in serving a higher calling than the laws which protect the drums of war and the brutality of sanctions: the laws of love and human rights for the people whose cries are drowned out by the noise of F-16's, Apache helicopters, smart bombs and government bureaucracy. The truth demands nothing less."

Mr. Conspiracy Says...

What are you, an idiot? At this point, all anti-administration petitions are simply the new version of the Nazis asking Jews and homosexuals to register. It's just a cleverer, more deceitful way of preparing their lists of who to round up when the day comes for them to re-classify anyone they want as an enemy combatant and haul them away without public trial. What day? Probably a Thursday. 

In October 2004 expect...

1. the capture of Osama bin Laden.
2. the capture or killing of Saddam Hussein.
3. another major act of terrorism on our shores.
4. gas prices to drop from $4 to $.99.
5. a spurious announcement that unemployment has suddenly dropped to 3% which will be corrected a few days after the election.

Don't Take My Word For It

"Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others."
- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld, French moralist -

"...every US soldier in Iraq has been taken hostage. The hostage takers are not the terrorists but the small clique of Bush administration officials who have violated US tradition, international agreements, and the sacred trust that commanders owe their soldiers."
- James Carroll: Saying 'no' to the war in Iraq -

"When someone uses our site and clicks on the I Agree button, it is as if he agrees to let us submit all of his data to the legal authorities. Which means that if you are a law-enforcement officer, all you have to do is send us a fax with a request for information, and ask about the person behind the seller's identity number, and we will provide you with his name, address, sales history and other details -- all without having to produce a court order. We want law enforcement people to spend time on our site."
- Joseph Sullivan: director of the "law enforcement and compliance" department at eBay.com -

"Technical skill is mastery of complexity while creativity is mastery of simplicity."
- E. Christopher Zeeman -

"I watched one of my daydreams come true in the first debate. Medical marijuana was the only issue that all the candidates agreed upon: all pledged to uphold California's marijuana laws. State Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Northridge, the most conservative, was the most ardent -- stating that the federal government should stay out of the state's business."
- Ed Rosenthal -

"The Marshall Plan was not a huge bill presented to Congress for its rubber-stamp approval. It was a comprehensive strategy to provide $13.3 billion to 16 countries over four years to aid in reconstruction. In current dollars, the U.S. share would be about $88.2 billion spread over four years - very nearly the same amount that has been requested by the President for one country for a period of mere months. Moreover, the total amount of aid that the President will ultimately request for Iraq is anyone's guess."
- West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd: Marshall Plan to Bush Iraqi Plan: No Comparison -

"For another look at our economic trends, see Forbes magazine’s annual list of the fastest-growing companies released this month. The top spot is by a firm that produces airport security devices. The list is dominated by oil and gas companies, pharmaceutical firms, and other businesses friendly to Bush. More companies are outsourcing jobs to contractors who get no benefits. The number of Americans without health insurance continues to grow, and what is Bush and other Republican leaders doing about that? Nothing. Not a damn thing."
- Jackson Thoreau: Poor Americans continue to multiply under Bush as Republicans continue to stick their heads in the sand -

"We're doing a better job of communicating. Now the left hand knows what the right hand is doing." 
- Dubya while first raising his right, then his left hand (saw it myself on Letterman) -

"Last February, retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner was trying to put together a team of experts to rebuild Iraq after the war was over, and his list included 20 State Department officials. The day before he was supposed to leave for the region, Garner got a call from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who ordered him to cut 16 of the 20 State officials from his roster. It seems that the State Department people were deemed to be Arabist apologists, or squishy about the United Nations, or in some way politically incorrect to the right-wing ideologues at the White House or the neocons in the office of the Secretary of Defense. The vetting process got so bad that 'even doctors sent to restore medical services had to be anti-abortion,' recalled one of Garner's team."
- Newsweek! -

"The president is asking Congress for an additional $87 billion in emergency spending for Iraq. But where will the money come from? Next year's budget is already almost $500 billion in the hole. The simplest and most obvious place to get the money: Postpone next years tax cut for the richest 1 percent of Americans, those earning more than half a million dollars a year. That would generate about $87 billion right there, the whole extra cost of the war."
- Robert B. Reich, Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis University: War Tax The Wealthy -

"There is not enough grammar in the entirety of the English language to describe the incredible international humiliation that has befallen the United States of America. That this humiliation was brought down upon the American people by the man supposedly in charge of the country is, in all honesty, no big surprise for those who have been watching this all unfold. The layers of crushing embarrassment have been building like river sediment for months upon months upon months. On Tuesday, however, George W. Bush managed to completely obliterate the hard-won standing the United States has earned within the global community."
- William Rivers Pitt: Situation Excellent, I Am Attacking - 

"And I'm very glad we've got the great team in office, men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice... people I know very well - our president George W. Bush. We need them there."
- General Wesley Clark: Democratic candidate for president -

"Saddam has not developed any significant capability with respect to WMD. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
- General Colin Powell: February 24, 2001 -

"He goes to hell,
the one who asserts
what didn't take place,
as does the one
who, having done,
says, 'I didn't.'
Both—low-acting people—
there become equal:
after death, in the world beyond."
- Dhammapada 306 -

"There is nothing more American than raising your voice in protest, and there is nothing more un-American than a government that attempts to hit the mute button when it doesn't like what it hears."
- Witold Walczak: Legal Director of the ACLU -

"To avoid therefore the evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten thousand times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruptions but with due caution; that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion; that he should approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. By this wise prejudice we are taught to look with horror on those children of their country, who are prompt rashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put him into the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by their poisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they may regenerate the paternal constitution, and renovate their father's life." 
- Edmund Burke on the French Revolution -

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy."
- Ernest Benn -

"If we can't trust our Administration to tell the truth and our media to report the truth, then it's up to us to demand the truth again and again. I know so many people are working two jobs to make their rent and have little energy or inclination left to question what they hear. But people need to wake up. If we don't, this world will be anything but safer for our children and our children's children. We have to be vigilant and not buy what they are telling us just because they say it again and again. For the Bush administration, truth seems to be irrelevant. It can't and shouldn't be for us."
- Barbra Streisand -

"Instead of creating 510,000 jobs in 2003, as President Bush predicted, the Republican-led economy has suffered a net loss of 473,000 jobs so far this year. The Timken Company, an Ohio-based steel and bearings manufacturer where the President launched his Jobs and Growth package in April, embarrassed the Administration two weeks ago with an announcement it will cut 900 jobs."
- Job Losses at Level of Great Depression Contradict President Bush's Wishful Predictions -

"It took the better part of 20 years to rebuild the Army from the wreckage of Vietnam. With the hard work of a generation of young officers, blooded in Vietnam and determined that the mistake would never be repeated, a new Army rose Phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, now perhaps the finest Army in history. In just over two years, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his civilian aides have done just about everything they could to destroy that Army."
- Joseph Galloway: How to ruin a great army in a short time -

"When you bathe, do not admire yourself in a mirror. Never stay in the bath more than five or six minutes -- just long enough to bathe and dry and dress AND THEN GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM into a room where you will have some member of your family present."
- Mark E. Petersen: Steps in Overcoming Masturbation -

"Administration officials have circulated a draft [UN resolution] that would keep American control over military forces and the transition to self-rule but they are incorporating some suggestions of other nations... A diplomat familiar with administration thinking summarized the American policy as 'talk to the Germans, buy off the Russians and isolate the French.' Another was less polite, saying Condoleezza Rice, the White House national security adviser, had characterized the approach as 'ignore, reward and punish'... In comments in recent days, Mr. Powell showed increasing exasperation with the French position, especially over what American officials consider a condescending French view that the United States is in love with being an occupying power." 
- Steven R. Weisman: U.S. Is Working to Isolate France in U.N. Council on Iraq Approach -

"A friend representing a French company in Washington recently went with some trepidation to Paris with the unwelcome news that he had been told by the Pentagon that there was absolutely no chance of his employers getting a contract in Iraq. He was not looking forward to report total failure of his well-paid efforts but to his relief the chairman greeted the dire news with prolonged laughter saying: 'Don't worry. Let's just wait a year or two and then it will be American companies which won't be able to do business with the Iraqis.'" 
- Patrick Cockburn: The Iraq Wreck, A Failure of Historic Proportions -

"Enlightenment is all like a monkey grasping at the moon reflected in the water." 
- Shoitsu -

And George Washington Chopped it Down

Electricity for almost the entire county of Italy was brought down by one tree.

Everything Else

Mandatory reading: E. B. White bids Farewell my Lovely! to the model-T Ford in this incredible classic essay from the New Yorker in 1936. Learn what it was really like to own the first piece of mass produced transportation.

And then of course there's The Dalai Lama interviewed by Spaulding Gray.

As if need proof that wealth can't buy class, check out The top four ugliest cars on the road.

Miss something on TV last night? Watch it here.