After many comments back and forth yesterday on a diary I initiated, and for which I took considerable heat for being a conspiracy theorist, I now have a better understanding of how 9/11 might have occurred in a manner consistent with the official version, thanks to a number of engineering types who patiently explained their ideas.

What they have said has caused me to visualise the collapses as being quite similar to the collapse of an accordion, though no one used this term or even suggested it. Prior to today I have always tended to visualize the towers as being more like a long and skinny natural block of solid wood rather than a man-made hollow bodied object like an accordion. Today I see it differently.

If the WTC collapses were in fact collapses consistent with the way an accordion collapses, then many of the skeptics' legitimate questions could be sufficiently answered.

The accordion theory of collapse could explain a number of the major questions of the skeptics.

The nine questions it could answer after the flip.

Those 9/11 conspiracy theorists just keep coming and coming.  Well I am going to show you how to debunk them using three of the darlings of the 9/11 conspiracy movement.

But you must come visit after the flip.

I really am not up to doing a diary.  But I see that elsewhere the question has been raised whether the Israel/Lebanon conflict is a water rights conflict.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/...

I have heard reports that the Israeli's have warned everyone south of the Litani River to leave.

Here is an interesting article from nine years ago (back when Israel was still occupying Lebanon) about the Litani River and the water rights conflicts between Lebanon and Israel over it's use:

http://www.american.edu/...

A pdf of My Reply Brief is now up.

http://dragonflihost.net/...

Thanks again to dragonfli for being such a helpful and gracious host.  And as promised, the Reply Brief is based entirely on my statute of frauds argument.

For framing purposes, for those of you who know lawyers, always tell lawyers we need a Statute of Frauds for Voting. Don't say paper record or paper ballot; it will not compute. Tell them we need a Statute of Frauds for Voting, just like we have for commercial transactions, and the light bulb should (finally) come on.

Snippets from the brief:

After many months of looking at the election process, it has dawned on the Appellant [that's me] that the election process must be viewed in reverse.... We need to look at the election contest lawsuit first and then work backwards to the actual casting of the ballot.

More after the flip:

I thought I would never see the day that I agreed with GWB on anything.  But I think that day is here.  He has said the Plamegate investigation is over, and sadly, I am coming to the conclusion he is right.

I bet the CIA is just sick at the present state of affairs.  Certainly, when the CIA made its complaints about the outing of Plame, it was not its desire to have an adminstration scapegoat indicted for perjury, of all things.  One would think the CIA wanted prosecutions under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or under the Espionage Act.  The CIA probably could have cared less about prosecutions for perjury.

Now that Rove appears not to face charges for perjury and Fitz's modus operandi is not to charge anyone with the outing of an agent (heaven forbid!), there really is nowhere to go.

More after the flip.

On Thursday I began a diary about this same topic:

http://www.dailykos.com/...

There were many responses, many flames, but all in all, it turned out to be a productive exercise.  

I think I have now found at least four different possible scenarios where Leopold could have been right about Rove being indicted and where Luskin could have been right about Fitzgerald not "seeking any criminal charges" at least not in the imminent future.  There may be more possibilities.

And since Fitzgerald remains silent on the subject, his silence certainly arouses suspicion about the matter.

See the four possibilities after the flip.

Time Reported:

Luskin had just received a fax from Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, saying that he was formally notifying Luskin that absent any unexpected developments, he does not anticipate seeking any criminal charges against Rove.

http://www.time.com/...

It is the word "seeking" that is bothering me.  There is a big difference between the burden of "probable cause" (necessary for an indictment) and beyond a reasonable doubt (necessary for a conviction).  Criminal law is not my field, but I am sure that there must be a way for a prosecutor who obtains an indictment from the grand jury to refuse to file or hesitate to file the case because he does not think he yet has proof beyond a reasonable doubt.  Or maybe a prosecutor could refuse to file or delay filing formal charges just to use the indictment as a hammer for turning state's evidence.

More after the flip.

In 1677 the British enacted a law called the Statute of Frauds and Perjuries.  

The Statute of Frauds and Perjuries was based upon the premise that without paper evidence of the essential terms of a business transaction, the transaction was ripe for fraud and the case became little more than a contest of who was the best perjurer.

The statute of frauds became the law of the colonies, and later, of each and every state, because the courts recognized the value of paper as a deterrent to fraud.

Likewise for most of the USA's history, it was recognized that a paper ballot was the best electoral fraud prevention device known to man.  

After all, voting is a transaction between the government and the people.  

But in the early twentieth century our legislatures lost sight of the principle of the statute of frauds and began to eradicate paper-based voting systems.  That was a huge mistake.

We need to again recognize the principle that paper is the greatest deterrent to fraud ever invented.

We need a national statute of frauds for voting.  Not just for some but for all of us.

There's more of course.

Each acre of hemp yields 10 tons of biomass (1,000 gallons of methanol) in 4 months.

"Make the most of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere." - George Washington, 1794

     In a recent diary by OrangeClouds, she happened to mention that she had bought some hemp pants.  I was curious about hemp, because frankly, I am tired of paying to launder and starch cotton dress shirts.  I wondered if hemp shirts might be an alternative so I began to check out hemp.  My quest to find out about hemp clothing led me to some very unexpected information about hemp.  What I found out about hemp as a clean burning fuel made me more than angry.

The next time you hear a Republican tell you that Democrats don't believe in energy independence, because Democrats won't allow drilling in ANWAR, here is your comeback.  When was the last time any Republican told you we could have complete energy independence by growing the crop Republicans love to ban?  Yes my friends, its hemp, a/k/a cannabis, a/k/a marijuana.

More after the flip.

I lost a rather lengthy post and I am not about to type the whole damn thing again.

So here's the article:  

http://www.int.iol.co.za/...

What is exciting and what makes this seem like the real deal is that these South African engineers are licensing it to a company in Germany that is going to start immediate production 24/7.

Not too terribly surprising is the fact that no US companies have yet to get involved.

While reading a diary yesterday about Presidential blunders, for some odd reason ( I have no clue why ) the words blunder and Bush simultaneusoly came to mind.  I thought it just might be useful to combine the two and add a new word to our lexicon: Blunderbush.  After all, the word gerrymander came from a politician's name.  To make certain the term made sense, I went to wikipedia to look up blunderbuss, just to be sure.

More after the flip.

The seventeenth amendment is the one that allowed citizens to vote directly for senators.  Our founding fathers must have figured this was not a good idea or it would have been in the original constitution.  What did they know that early twentieth century Americans didn't?  More after the flip.

The year was 1967.  The issue was not about whether the President had the authority to wiretap without a warrant.  One justice didn't care; he was going to wax eloquently about the issue anyway.  Two other justices were not about to let him get away with it.

See what all three said after the flip.

The Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.  

Everyone knows that governmental officials take an oath to uphold the Constitution, but it may not be as well known that every lawyer does as well.  As a lawyer, I have taken this oath twice because I am licensed in two states.

Most lawyers would agree that taking this oath is a solemn occassion.  But what does this oath mean to us?  We may be about to find out.

More after the flip.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/13410061.htm........... No need to rely on yesterday's reports by Bev Harris and Blackboxvoting.org. The Miami Herald has confirmed the tests.  The reports of these tests now seem very legitimate.

"Over the past few months, computer expert Harri Hursti tried to manipulate election results with the memory card inserted into each Diebold voting machine. The card records votes during an election, then at the end of the day is taken to a central location where results are totaled.

Hursti figured out how to hack into the memory card by using an agricultural scanning device easily available on the Internet, said BlackBox founder Bev Harris. He learned how to hide votes, make losers out of winners and leave no trace, she said."

Test results and more after the fold.

Hardly a day goes by that I do not see a diary here concerned with the verification of elections.

As many of you know, I filed a suit last August in my own name alleging that paperless voting violated the Tennessee Constitution.  Many of you wanted to be updated.  Not much has happened yet but a Motion to Dismiss is pending and will be heard Friday.  I am quite optimistic that I will be allowed to go forward.

The reason for my optimism is that voting paperless and voting on paper are two different systems which produce very unequal voting rights.  My suit is the fraternal twin of Brown v. Board of Education.  Also Baker v. Carr, the very suit (on apportionment) that my trip up Alito's nomination is also right on point.

This is a call to arms for lawyers.  This suit is cheap and we need copycats around the country.  Four or five state victories should make precedence.  Please volunteer!

My abridged version of the case is below the fold with a link to the last Amended Complaint.

Last week I posted a first draft of a suit (I will be filing very soon) to have paperless voting declared to be unconstitutional under  the Tennessee Constitution.

Many of you made helpful suggestions so I am reposting the most recent draft.  Further review and suggestions are encouraged.

Many state Constitutions also require that elections must be "free and equal" just like Tennessee's does.

Eight unconstitutional claims have been increased to ten.

Many state Constitions also require the state legislatures to "secure ... the purity of the ballot box" or use very similar language or concepts to that of Tennessee's.

This is a model lawsuit that could be boilerplated in many jurisdictions to stop the pernicious spread of paperless voting.

Copycat suits are encouraged.

The text of the suit appears in extended entry.

It has become an obsession of mine to see if there is any way to stop paperless voting.

I think I have found a way, so I am filing a suit in my own name here in Tennsessee based on the Tennessee Constitution, and claiming that the paperless ballot violates the Tennessee Constitution.

I think many state constituitons have similar language and such a suit would work elsewhere.  I am inviting copycat suits.

I have attached a first draft for you legal Kossaks and would appreciate input.

The Complaint is in Extended Entry.