Adam Savage says: "My wife has been working for these folks. I'm passing it on to you in case you're interested. It's sooper inportant. They are non-partisan, btw."

Project Vote has now posted online lists of people (with their addresses) who filed registration applications in various counties but who were not put on the voter rolls by election authorities because of alleged or actual deficiencies in their applications.

The list is available at www.ProjectVote2008.org.

The lists will be supplemented as we get new ones.

This should be extremely valuable in helping 501c3 groups around the country locate people who think they are properly registered – but aren't – either correct their registrations or file new, correct ones before the deadline so that they can vote November 4th.

Project Vote 2008

(Tara McGinley, Richard Metzger September 2008. Photo: Coop)

Meet our next guestblogger, Richard Metzger. Shortly after I met Richard in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, he launched an amazing web directory of unusual information called disinfo.com. He later went on to produce a television show, a conference, and a book and DVD publishing company under the Disinformation brand.

Richard is one of the smartest people I know, and has introduced me to so many obscure but mind-blowing books, movies, and musicians I don't know where to start.

He's also directed videos for different bands, including Ann Magnuson's Bongwater.

We're thrilled to have him guestblogging on Boing Boing for the next two weeks. Please give a warm welcome to Richard!

Greetings Boing Boing readers, it's an honor to be your guest blogger for the next few weeks and it will be fun to share my latest pop culture enthusiasms with everyone!

Since leaving The Disinformation Company Ltd., I moved back to Los Angeles and co-wrote a graphic novel about homicidal mail men. (Stay away from mail men, they are very, very bad people). I am currently working to launch "Dangerous Minds," a new multi-platform talk show. We shot a pilot recently with Jackass ringleader Johnny Knoxville at Coop's studio. I'll have a proper posting about the project here later in the week.

Richard Metzger

Photographer David Friedman visited a Kentucky "distressing" factory where skilled laborers expertly age denim for the benefit of high-end designers, and produced a sweet little photos essay of these artisans at work. Photo Essay: The Denim Factory (via Kottke)

Circumcised? Need a foreskin? Have no fear, Viafin's synthetic turtleneck's got you covered:

Being circumcised affects the natural operation, appearance and sensitivity of the penis. During recent years much medical research has been carried out in several countries into the function and purpose of the foreskin. There is now conclusive medical evidence that a circumcised penis with the glans exposed has less nerve receptors and is less effective than a naturally covered penis.

Over the years the exposed glans becomes less sensitive. There is well-documented evidence which shows that this can, and often does, have a disastrous effect on sexual performance, its consequences, and ultimately, on self esteem.

The SenSlip range of artificial retractable foreskins is available in different sizes, to allow for variation between individuals. With ten sizes we want you to be fitted correctly right from the start. (See fitting chart)

Welcome to Viafin-Atlas (Thanks, Bill!)

Derek sez, "We recently produced a line of vinyl wall decals featuring the vintage 1978 modernist designs of the Toronto Subway system." These colors and lettering are permanently etched into my brain from a thousand million rides. Walloper (Thanks, Derek!)

The Private Islands blog has an update on Xavier Rosset's trip to Tofua Island in the Kingdom of Tonga. (See "Adventurer will live 300 days as Robinson Crusoe")

As I reported previously Swiss adventurer, explorer and islomaniac Xavier Rosset has set out on an expedition to spend 300 days living alone on Tofua Island, in the Kingdom of Tonga.

Xavier’s arrival on Tofua Island was delayed because of bad weather conditions.

Once Xavier was alone on Tofua, he started to get organized and tried to put together his camp and food. Xavier has to be ready as quickly as possible; the hurricane season is starting in more or less 6 weeks.

The first concern of Xavier was of course to find food. So he went fishing. But despite his best goodwill, he didn’t catch that many fish, only one every second day. On the top of that, the rain didn’t spare him so he couldn’t make a fire and had to eat his fish raw.

These factors affected his nerves by his second week on the island. He was disappointed and wanted to give up, feeling lonely. But Xavier is stronger than that and brought himself together quickly.

Explorer reports on his first two weeks on Tofua Island

I'm an admirer of artists who create a painting a day, and then post them to their blog. Abbey Ryan is one such artist.

You can bid on Abbey's work on eBay. The painting above, "Fortune Cookie No. 2," (Oil on linen on panel, 5 x 6 in.) has a current high bid of $99. A Painting a Day by Abbey Ryan

Floyd Norris, liveblogging the panic today at the NYT -- The Great Crash of 2008:

2:45 p.m. ET: If the S.&P. 500 closes where it is now, (1009.07, down 8% for the day) it will have lost more than 13% over the past three sessions. The only other time declines of that magnitude occurred since World War II was in the crash of 1987. Prior to that, the last one was in May 1940, when France fell to Germany.

Discuss, and breathe deeply, folks. We're gonna get through it together. (ht for the hed @Howard Rheingold)

Video: "The 1929 Stock Market Crash newsreel."

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UPDATE: Our community manager Teresa Nielsen Hayden points to this NYT analysis by Joe Nocera as "the most lucid explanation" for what's going on:

This is what a credit crisis looks like. It’s not like a stock market crisis, where the scary plunge of stocks is obvious to all. The credit crisis has played out in places most people can’t see. It’s banks refusing to lend to other banks — even though that is one of the most essential functions of the banking system. It’s a loss of confidence in seemingly healthy institutions like Morgan Stanley and Goldman — both of which reported profits even as the pressure was mounting. It is panicked hedge funds pulling out cash. It is frightened investors protecting themselves by buying credit-default swaps — a financial insurance policy against potential bankruptcy — at prices 30 times what they normally would pay.

It was this 36-hour period two weeks ago — from the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 17, to the afternoon of Thursday, Sept. 18 — that spooked policy makers by opening fissures in the worldwide financial system.

As Credit Crisis Spiraled, Alarm Led to Action (NYT via Balloon Juice.)

Also, everyone reading this blog should stop what they're doing right now and go listen to This American Life's epic episode from Friday: Another Frightening Show About the Economy.

Alex Blumberg and NPR's Adam Davidson—the two guys who reported our Giant Pool of Money episode—are back, in collaboration with the Planet Money podcast. They'll explain what happened this week, including what regulators could've done to prevent this financial crisis from happening in the first place. You can learn more about the daily ins and outs and join the discussion on the Planet Money blog.

Here's the direct MP3 Link.

eBoy, the artist collective that designed Boing Boing's logos, announced the launch of its wooden Blockbob Eater doll today.

Made out of Swiss maple wood, 8.5" tall and limited to 70 pieces. Each unit comes numbered and signed.

eBoy's Blockbob Eater doll

In the sweet and sad novel, World Made By Hand by James Howard Kunstler, the population of the United States (and most likely, the world) has been decimated by an energy shortage, starvation, plagues, terrorism, and global warming. The story takes place in an unspecified time in the near future (I'm guessing it's around 2025 or so). Kunstler is the author of the non-fiction book The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, and World Made by Hand is a fictional account of what life might be like if things go the way he describes them in Long Emergency. (Here's a TED video of Kunstler from 2004. Thanks, Erik!)

The story is told by Robert Earle, who used to be a software executive. Now he's a hand-tool using carpenter living in a town in upstate New York without Internet, TV, or newspapers. The electricity comes on every couple of weeks for a few minutes at a time. When that happens, nothing's on the radio but hysterical religious talk. Rumors of goings-on in the rest of the world are vague.

There's no fuel or rubber tires left for cars, and even if there were, the roads and bridges are shot. Earle can't afford a horse or donkey, so when he needs to buy carpentry supplies, he takes his hand cart to a compound on the outskirts of town called Karptown. It's a trailer park next to the dump that's been taken over by a dangerous gang of former bikers and motorheads who roam the neighborhoods salvaging scrap materials from abandoned houses and buildings.

The town is loosely run by a group of 15 men (no women) who half-heartedly try to maintain law and order, which is hard because no one wants to stand up to troublemakers like the folks at Karptown, who conduct occasional raids on people's homes.

The story kicks off when Earle (who lost his wife and daughter in the plague and hasn't seen his 19-year-old son since the boy took off a couple of years earlier to find out what's happened in the rest of the country) is elected mayor and joins a search party to look for a freight boat and its crew, which disappeared on its way to Albany. Their horse-mounted odyssey takes them on a tour through a post-apocalyptic world of insanity, greed, kindness, corruption, and ingenuity.

While life in Kunstler's world is lawless and harsh and populated with opportunistic characters that make Boss Tweed look like Glinda the Good, it's not without charms. Local communities are active and productive. Neighbors all know each other and look after one another. People grow and trade their own produce and livestock, and meals are tasty -- lots of buttery corn bread, eggs, chicken, vegetables, streaks, fish. They get together and play music a lot, and because people aren't stuck in their living rooms watching TV, they actually attend live performances.

As a budding urban homesteader, I found the way of life in World Made By Hand, fascinating. No one can predict the future, and I doubt our future will be much like the one depicted here, but I think its possible that Kunstler has come closer to showing us what's in store than anyone else. Buy World Made by Hand on Amazon

Hey, speaking of bluegrass... when Led Zeppelin founder Robert Plant teamed up with Nashville mama Allison Krauss, critics compared the musical collaboration to a hookup between King Kong and Bambi. But their album "Raising Sand," produced by T-Bone Burnett, earned the odd duo widespread raves. Boing Boing tv's London music correspondent Russell Porter caught up with Plant and Krauss backstage at the Mercury Prize, an annual award for the best album from the UK or Ireland.

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Link to Boing Boing tv blog post with downloadable video and daily podcast subscription instructions.

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Saudi cleric Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan has come up with a solution for troublesome women who wear eye makeup to look seductive as they peer through the slit in the black hoods they wear whenever they step outside. He wants them to wear full veils with a single eyehole.

The problem with this idea, of course, is that every time a woman blinks, men will think she is winking at them. Writing to India Uncut, Amit Varma has a neat solution:

I have an alternative solution to your problem. I suggest that you introduce veils for men that cover both their eyes. That way it will make no difference if the women are winking, blinking or, heaven forbid, naked.

Good idea, no? You’re welcome.

Saudi cleric calls for one-eye veil for woman

This is the sharpest "whole Jupiter" photo ever taken from Earth. It was snapped with a telescope using special adaptive optics to reduce fuzz. From National Geographic:

Captured using a new computer-assisted process and a 27-foot (8.2-meter) telescope in Chile, the result is sharp enough to show features as small as 180 miles (300 kilometers) across...

Adaptive optics, (UC Berkeley/SETI Institute astronomer Franck) Marchis said, adjusts for distortions caused by the Earth's atmosphere, "providing images as if the telescope was in space."

New Jupiter Image: Sharpest View Ever From Earth

UPDATE: In the comments, DAEMON kindly posted a link to the full res image!

Three scientists split the 2008 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their discovery of HIV and HPV. French researchers Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barre-Sinoussi first identified human immunodeficiency virus in 1983 and German scientist Harald zur Hausen discovered the human papilloma virus which leads to cervical cancer. From the New York Times:

Of the more than 100 human papilloma viruses now known, about 40 infect the genital tract, and 15 of them put women at high risk for cervical cancer. Papilloma viruses account for more than 5 percent of all cancers worldwide.

The Karolinska Institute said that discovery of H.I.V. by the French scientists, Dr. Barre-Sinoussi and Dr. Montagnier, led to blood tests to detect the infection and to anti-retroviral drugs that are effective in prolonging the lives of patients. The tests are now used to screen blood donations, making the blood supply safer for transfusions. The viral discovery has also led to an understanding of the natural history of H.I.V. infection in people, which ultimately leads to AIDS unless treated.

Three Europeans Win the 2008 Nobel for Medicine

How do you make 4096 noodles in hurry? By stretching and folding the dough 12 times.

A clip from Philip Morrison's 1987 PBS program "The Ring of Truth: Atoms" featuring chef Kin Jing Mark making noodles to demonstrate the principle of halving.

The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics published new research on who should be considered "essential" in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak. Of course, medical workers and firefighters are on the list but so are a surprisingly diverse group of other folks who often go unrecognized in keeping us alive and happy. From a press release:

After examining several accepted public health rationing strategies that give priority to all healthcare workers and those most susceptible to illness, the authors propose a new strategy that gives priority to a more diverse group. “Alongside healthcare workers and first responders, priority should be given to the people who provide the public with basic essentials for good health and well-being, ranging from grocery store employees and communications personnel to truck drivers and utility workers,” says (Nancy Kass, Sc.D, Deputy Director of Public Health for the institute.)

Rethinking Who Should Be Considered 'Essential' During a Pandemic Flu Outbreak

NYT writer and Texas son John Schwartz wrote this very funny piece about the family in Texas who bear the name being co-opted by John McCain's presidential campaign.

[T]o those who know the history of the word, applying it to Mr. McCain is a bit of a stretch — and to one Texas family in particular it is even a bit offensive.

“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” said Terrellita Maverick, 82, a San Antonio native who proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.

In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he owned than the livestock on it, Ms. Maverick said; unbranded cattle, then, were called “Maverick’s.” The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s brand.

Who You Callin’ a Maverick? (NYT)
Image: Mr. Samuel Augustus Maverick, of Texas.

PingMag, the Tokyo-based magazine about "Design and Making Things" has an interview with a delightful musical duo, Lullatone.

Lullatone are a musical duo based in Nagoya comprised of the husband and wife team of Shawn James Seymour and Yoshimi Tomida. They make sweet, sleepy, sine-wave-riddled songs with whispered lyrics, poppy melodies, and parse, carefully arranged beats. The Lullas utilise children’s instruments, splashing water, household sounds, and electronic sounds to craft their delightful songs for young and old. From the visual side, they make all of their clips by themselves — a delightful mix of film, stop-motion animation, and video that syncs nicely with their hypnotic, dreamy live shows.

Lullatone: Catch the Bedtime Beat!

This JFK rug from the 1960s is up for auction on eBay. It's 52cm x 40cm. Starting bid is $2000.
US President Kennedy - Portrait -- Persian Rug (Thanks, Sly Thompson!)

In this YouTube clip, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) says some congresspeople were told in private briefings that if they did not pass the bailout bill, circumstances would soon force the federal government to "impose martial law."

(Thanks, Martha Clayton)

Steve Chasman is posting one old timey Halloween photo every day during the month of October. This one is from 1911. Halloween photo from 1911 (via Little Hokum Rag)

Dutch psychologist Christof van Nimwegen posits that paper and pens/pencils boost learning and creative problem solving much more than computers do. Van Nimwegen wrote a PhD dissertation, titled "The paradox of the guided user: assistance can be counter-effective", about how software affects brain processes. English professor Michael Leddy summed up the research beautifully in his blog entry about it: "What's crucial of course is not ink or graphite (or paper!) but self-reliance—trusting one's mind rather than the machine." From eNews 2.0:

Van Nimwegen says much software turns us into passive beings, subjected to the whims of computers, randomly clicking on icons and menu options. In the long run, this hinders our creativity and memory, he says.

Van Nimwegen also investigated what happened if, during a task his two groups were working on, their computers suddenly crashed.

"The group that used a computer throughout, felt lost instantly and immediately performed badly when completing the task. The second group, who has used only pen and pencil, simply carried on with its work."

Van Nimwegen says his study demonstrates people may benefit if they continue to study new information by using books and the spoken word.

Paper and pencil, not computer, boosts creativity

Patrick Dougherty is a sculptor who uses tree saplings as his construction material. He began with small pieces on pedestals and his work eventually, er, grew into massive installations that require truckloads of saplings. Patrick Dougherty (Thanks, Michael-Anne Rauback!)

UPDATE: Dougherty was featured in Vol. 8 of CRAFT! "Temple of Twigs"

My friend Bob Staake posted a video that shows how he illustrated the cover of the latest New Yorker. He still uses Photoshop 3.0 and Macintosh OS 7!

I suppose I have a pretty unusual way of working -- at least that's what my illustrator friends are always telling me. I start by creating the most basic shapes and then refine with details as I go. To me the process feels completely normal. I look at that stark white space in front of me and can see the entire fully completed image in my head. Maybe I'm just lucky that way.

The making of Bob Staake's New Yorker cover

My fortnight is over today, so I thought I'd share with you what I'm doing now and next - as well as how to stay in touch if you want to.

In June I'll be releasing a new book and short film, Life Incorporated: How we traded meaning for markets, society for self-interest, and citizenship for customer service. They both look at the way human beings and corporations traded places, and how we came to accept corporatism as our dominant value system.

What I conclude is that our society didn't just end up this way. This landscape was cultivated over time. We are living on a playing field sloped towards corporate interests. Every day, we negotiate the slope to the best of our ability. Still, many of us fail to measure up to the people we'd like to be, and succumb to the tilt of the landscape. We buy from Wal-Mart and supermarket instead of the local druggist and farmer who they put out of business. We save to send our kids to private school instead of investing our time to make the public ones better. We spend our money insulating ourselves from the crime in our neighborhoods instead of our energy reducing the poverty and resentment feeding it. When things are tough, it’s every man for himself.

And the more decisions we make in this way, the more we contribute to the very conditions leading to this awfully sloped landscape. All things being equal, we’d rather be doing things differently.

But all things are not equal. Our choices are being made under painstakingly manufactured duress. We think this is just the way things are. But it’s not.

My book chronicles the way we got here, who wanted it this way, and why no one remembers what happened - from the renaissance era of corporate charters, centralized currency, and colonial expansion through industrial age experiments with fascism, right up to the inventions of public relations, self-interest, target marketing, and behavioral finance. Finally, I look at alternatives to corporatism - the kinds of bottom-up, local, and human-scaled efforts at meeting our shared needs that take place beyond the reach of centralized authorities, corporate monopolies, or interest-charging central banks. In many cases, these interactions transcend commerce altogether.

Until the book comes out and hopefully long after, I'm hosting a set of conversations at http://www.corporatized.net (or just go to rushkoff.com and click on Forums). I'm hoping it can be a place we can both deconstruct corporatized society and share our experiences of alternative strategies. I'll also be teaching a course on corporatism through the MaybeLogicAcademy.

With any luck, I'll be allowed to contribute to (or interfere with) the goings on at BoingBoing again next summer when the book is out and I'm on the road trying to pitch these ideas to the world at large.

In any case, it's been an honor and a pleasure to engage as a writer with BoingBoing - a publication and community I've been reading, admiring, and (to the best of my ability) emulating for over nineteen years. You are the shit.

Douglas Rushkoff was a guest blogger.

The Barack Obama endorsement ad here [direct mp3 link, and alternate link] featuring Dr. Ralph Stanley is currently running on radio stations in Southwest Virginia. That's about 900 kinds of wow, and I say this as someone born and raised in this part of the country, familiar with the social fabric. Blogger NMC at folo.us explains:

[Ralph] Stanley is the survivor of the Stanley Brothers, one of the few remaining figures of the first generation of bluegrass musicians. He’s from the part of the mountains the Carter Family came from, and has had a recent career revival for his part in the Oh Brother Where Art Thou music.

Ralph Stanley cuts the best radio ad of the cycle (folo.us via Ned Sublette, via TPM)

They've embedded a classic Dr. Stanley television performance clip at folo.us, below is another -- they're playing the Clinch Mountain Backstep, on an old television show with Pete Seeger. This is my favorite Stanley Brothers song ever, "Little Maggie," but I can't embed it. I know all the lyrics, and sometimes sing it to myself (and anyone in earshot unable to run screaming) on long car trips along old American roads. Whenever I hear this old-time music, I feel really proud to come from Virginia.

So I thought I was breaking some new ground in Testament by interpreting the Bible through the comics medium. It gave me the chance to play with a near-future frighteningly like the deep past being described in the ancient mythical stories.

Now, a Swedish adman and former CEO Dag Soderberg is leading a team called Illuminated World that's reinterpreting the Bible as a magazine - complete with sidebars, coverlines, and subheads. He's using the straight text, for the most part, but embellishing it with Bennetton-style photos and pull quotes.

On the one hand, I feel like objecting to the project outright. Something about the combination of an advertising perspective with the Bible feels like a contradiction. This project is provocative, but it's also oh-so slick, and comes off a bit like what happens when an adman hires a team of people to manifest his vision for selling the Bible to a new generation. The Illumination is there to make the Bible easier and trendier, not truer. On the other hand, I tend to feel about St. Paul's modifications on Judaism much the same way.

As someone who reworked Bible stories to promote my own cultural agendas, I'm in no position to criticize someone else for doing the same - even if the agendas are a bit different than my own. Plus, it's only the New Testament Soderberg has reworked (in English) so far. And the message there is a bit different than the one in the Hebrew Bible - which he's releasing shortly.

This is an interesting object to peruse, and it does make you consider both the Bible - and efforts to illuminate it - in a new light.

Jean Jean french beatboxer guimbarde UP YOUR SOUND !, YouTube (Thanks, Brendan via "friends list")

Sim says: Here's my latest video remix, this time of America's latest sweetheart/demagogue.