Just wanted to add my voice…please vote, everyone who’s eligible, and hasn’t already! No matter who you’re planning on voting for, I think participating in the process is crucial. Here’s to hoping for good weather, quick lines, and smooth (and accurate *grin*) counts. And consider tweeting to Twitter Vote Report, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Nifty…the new site MTV Music may very well make a run against YouTube’s massive collection of music videos. It’s easily searchable, doesn’t have to worry about takedowns, and not only includes a bunch of the oldies (80s FTW!), but they’re also embeddable. People may finally be starting to get a clue!

Without further ado, a personal fave (though ouch…they need to have a ‘no auto-start’ flag. UPDATE – ‘no auto-start’ fixed, within a day. Joy!):

I saw Religulous last night, and really enjoyed it. It’s a comedic version of Dawkins’ God Delusion…or more properly, his Channel 4 documentary The Root of All Evil?. It actually has quite a few similarities with The Root of All Evil?; in Religulous, Bill Maher interviews religious leaders, notables, and worshipers from many religious backgrounds: Protestant Christianity, Mormonism, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam (and a few bonus sects!). Like Dawkins, he uses the opportunity to expose what he sees as the ridiculousness of the belief in omnipotent beings that express human emotions like jealousy, the notion that non-religious people can’t have morals, and that ancient Bronze Age texts are not only inerrant, but actually trump modern science where they conflict

Both performances are good; the difference is that Bill Maher is funny (assuming you’re willing to laugh at the subject matter, of course). There are many …. well, flat-out ridiculous points within the movie, where I couldn’t decide between laughing out loud and crying out in anguish at the responses to Maher’s jibes. For anyone who’s a skeptic, freethinker, agnostic, atheist, or generally irreligious (did I cover enough ground there? *grin*), the comedy is pretty thick.

Maher ends on a somber note, though. Again much like Dawkins, he concludes with a call to action. He asserts that it is time for the non-religious to stand up and be counted, and time for the world to either “grow up, or die”. Too many religious traditions (and pretty much all the major ones) are direct competitors, antagonistic to others, and have fundamentalist branches that advocate violent means of either conversion or elimination of non-believers. His conclusion is that it’s time for humanity to outgrow our need for religion.

If you’re deeply religious, I wouldn’t suggest it…you’ll find it offensive. I won’t apologize for that, but it’s a point that has to be noted. Religion has always been a taboo topic; it’s difficult to criticize it in almost any way without being taken to task. People like Bill Maher are willing to do that, and I appreciate it. Unsurprisingly, the film has been heavily criticized…there are multiple negative reviews linked in the Reception section of the Wikipedia article. I encourage you to take a look. Some of the criticism is valid, as far as it goes…Maher’s intent is certainly to get in-and-out, and score easy points. But Bill Maher is, well…a comic. Give him a break; that’s his style. As noted earlier, try Richard Dawkins’ documentary for a more reasoned, less overtly inflammatory take on the same topic (available in 2 parts on Google Video: Part 1, Part 2)

But if you’re non-religious, irreligious, or just willing to go in with a VERY open mind, give Religulous a try. It’s really quite good, and a refreshing change of pace in a world that generally gives religion a free pass.

I just finished listening to an excellent C-SPAN interview in their series America and the Courts. The hour-long interview with Bloomberg Supreme Court reporter Greg Stohr explored the differing impact that the two candidates would have on the Court should they become President. It often includes a quote from the candidate directly as a jumping off point for a new segment of the interview, so it stays very close to the real world; there’s no hyperbole here. Stohr has a good feel for how McCain and Obama differ on nominees, their view of the Court, etc., and provides good examples.

I already considered the Supreme Court nomination issue one of my main deciding points for this election, but if I hadn’t, this would be great fodder for the decision-making process. Supreme Court nominations affect the country for generations; it’s one of the longest-living legacies a President has. Tax policy, executive orders, etc., can be changed by the next President…but they can’t remove a Justice (well, anything like as easily, anyway). Something to think about, IMO.

The video is available for now as a RealVideo link (teh ick) off of the C-SPAN link above, but the audio was in the C-SPAN podcast of the week feed, and so is directly available (again, for the time being) here.

James Bamford is the author of the classic The Puzzle Palace, the first book to open up the history of the National Security Agency (NSA) for all to see. It’s an amazing book, which the NSA attempted to squelch at the time of it’s publication, and is a must read if you’re at all interested in the history of this fascinating and secretive agency.

Since then, Bamford has continued to write on the intelligence services and especially the NSA, and Tuesday on Democracy Now he gave an hour-long interview the day that his newest book, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America was released. The book comes out at an opportune time, as Congress is currently investigating allegations that the intelligence services spied on the personal, intimate conversations of US military personnel, non-governmental organizations, and journalists. Both of the whistleblowers currently speaking to Congress (Adrienne Kinne and David Murfee Faulk) were previously interviewed by Bamford for the book.

It’s a powerful interview, and I look forward to reading the book. Both Bamford and Amy Goodman realize the point that Bruce Schneier made today at his blog: Warrants are a security device. They protect us against government abuse of power.

Requiring a warrant is a protection for us, the people…not for the terrorists. The rule of law and the power of transparency (whenever possible, and as appropriate) are absolutely essential. Books like The Puzzle Palace and The Shadow Factory keep the sunlight shining into the dark cracks. Well worth reading, and the interview is astoundingly relevant to both the abuses of today, and to the electoral choices that we’re getting ready to make here in the US.

As both the presidential (and congressional, for that matter) campaigns and the economic crisis continue to unfold, I become more and more convinced that Larry Lessig’s latest crusade is critically needed. The Change Congress movement is committed to increasing transparency in government, limiting the influence of lobbyists and special interests, supporting publicly financed campaigns, and ending earmarks. I’m a recent convert to some of these positions (public campaign finance, for example), but it’s becoming increasingly apparent that our democracy is broken.

I’m all in:

Unless I break down and relent, I think I’m going to pass on the VP debate tonight. There’s just no upside for me…it’s not going to change my vote, and I expect it to be both frustrating and awkward. As has been noted elsewhere, the VP debates tend to be more about a proxy attack against the opposing Presidential candidate, and I’ve had my fill of the negative campaigning (by both parties) for now. In addition, Gov. Palin has set the bar so low at this point that she may very well come out of this doing much better than expected, and with a Republican bump in the polls. I simply don’t think I can bear to watch it live. Besides, it’s not like it won’t be readily available later for me to catch up on. Vive la Internet!

On the bright side, I’ve seen a couple episodes of Fringe now, and it’s not too bad. Overly graphic, but that’s TV nowadays, it seems. Hulu certainly makes it easy to keep it on in the background. Nice!

I seriously think we lucked up yesterday. For whatever reason…Pelosi’s strategy (or screwup), Republican ideological differences, or just plain lack of leadership, the bailout plan failed in the House yesterday, and there’s no real chance of another vote until Thursday (mainly due to Rosh Hashanah). Awesome.

Realistically, something is going to happen…there’s too much pressure at this point on the government to do SOMETHING. But ironically, the combination of the vote failure and the postponement gives us the 72 hours to read and discuss the bill that the Sunlight Foundation had started a petition for. It’s probably inevitable that the existing bill will be the starting point; there isn’t enough time to create yet another plan out of whole cloth. But with 3 days between votes, Congressmen will have time to talk to more economists about options, citizens can continue to educate themselves and talk to their reps, and the media can hopefully contribute constructively to the discussion.

Already, we’re getting some ideas that seem plausible to me, like the proposal to increase FDIC insurance from $100K to $250K. We need more solutions that will calm and loosen the credit markets and start to deal with the ongoing housing crisis, not just reward risk-taking Wall St. executives because they’re too big to fail.

I decided to vote for Obama some time ago, though I’m not a registered Democrat, and I’m not 100% in favor of his policies. In fact, I voted Libertarian in every Presidential election I could until 2004, when I voted for Kerry (in an desperate effort to vote Bush out of office). Irregardless, I try to vote the issues, not the person…and on the issues that matter most to me, and to the country, I line up with Obama. These issues include:

• The War on Terror and its consequences
• The invasion of Iraq
• Guantanamo Bay, the use of torture, and habeas corpus
• Supreme Court nominations
• Health care reform

Luckily, on all these issues, I agree with a single candiate’s position; Obama’s. On the other hand, since I still have a small-government inclination, we disagree more on some economic issues; in addition, I’m highly skeptical of his energy plan without a nuclear component (that he presently avoids explicitly supporting).

But the differences there are trumped by the agreement on the truly important points; issues that I also have almost a perfect disagreement with McCain over. (Ironically, McCain and I probably see much closer to eye to eye on the issues that are less relevant to me for the election). So it’s really a no-brainer. I’ll talk more about the topics above in some upcoming posts, but the takeaway is that I’m close to Obama’s position on pretty much all of those. So no surprises from me in November, and no WAY any of these debates could make a difference. To me, it’s not about the dog-and-pony show; it’s about the issues.