Redirect $3.8 Billion

Congressman Schiff:

Now is a very good time to stop the annual $3.8 billion gift of weapons to Israel. $3.8 billion? The Israel lobby is very effective, aren't they. Your pro-Israel voters are very strong. But you know as well as they do that PALESTINIANS HAVE SOULS TOO. If you listened only to the lobbyists and those voters you'd think that Palestinians were just another breed of dog. But you know that they are people deserving of protection from oppression to the same degree as Jews worldwide.

The now-13-year Israeli blockade, repeated bombings, and 72 years of settler-colonialism—funded by our taxes—have systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip’s infrastructure and healthcare system. Now is a very good time to stop the flow of military aid to Israel. USCPR calculates that $3.8 billion would provide 76,000 ventilators, 760,000 N-95 masks and 25,888 ER doctors' salaries. Now is a very good time to redirect $3.8 billion where it is needed most.

How many Uzis does $3.8B buy and how many deaths will they result in? How many ventilators are needed in the US and how many deaths will they prevent?

Now is a very good time to argue down the Israel lobby and your pro-Israel voters. They do not have a strong case. You do.

Thanks very much for your laudable work in Congress.

Dear Kindle Digital Publishing

Amazingly, eReaders still aren't able to display multimedia novels in the way that the author-designer intends. eReaders display text beautifully, but in ensuring that the user be able to customize the eReader so his reading experience is the best possible, eReader developers strip out many multimedia elements that the user would otherwise enjoy. The promise of eReaders doesn't stop with beautifully rendered text. They offer the possibility for the novel to move to an entirely new area somewhere between novels, games, movies, and websites. I would like to see an option in eReaders that allows the author-designer to have more control and asks the user to relinquish some control over the eReader's display in order to have an enhanced reading experience. One solution would be to offer something like a "browser mode" in which all the features of HTML5 and CSS3 can be employed offline to enhance the user's reading experience. Currently the only eReader I've found that comes close to this is Sigil's previewer, but even it, as far as I can tell, doesn't allow for audio playback without the control panel. But it does allow videos to be placed anywhere on a page with any level of transparency. It would be very nice if the user were able to see what I see when I'm designing a multimedia novel with Sigil. Please allow eBook technology to continue evolving in this direction.