(PHOTO: "Do you think he's alive???" shot by Kevin Law.)

Over at Ethicurean, there's an extensive post exploring what the newly elected American president might do differently about food, farms, and related systems of energy and technology in the United States:

According to Speech Wars, between April and October, John McCain uttered the word “agriculture” only twice, and “nutrition” just once. Barack Obama did slightly better, referring to “agriculture” twelve times and “nutrition” four times. He gave farms a passing mention in his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August. But let’s face it: for the most part, food was a quiet issue, sacrificed to our discussions about race and religion, gender and sexism, oil and bailouts.

Meanwhile, food prices continued to rise. Our nation continued to lose farms daily. We continued to spend billions of dollars treating lifestyle diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Rural towns continued to wither. Fertilizer runoff continued to damage our drinking water.

There’s no way around it: the Obama administration will need to address food issues head-on.

Last month, Michael Pollan published a sweeping letter to the next president, Farmer in Chief, in the New York Times. After Pollan’s article was published, the American Farmland Trust noted that “there is no topic of greater importance than the issues [Pollan] raises…it is time to elevate these issues to their rightful place on our national agenda.”

Turns out Obama might agree; Obama read Pollan’s article and even worked it into discussions of energy policy. So what might we expect from an Obama administration when it comes to food policy? Maybe quite a bit. In his plan for rural America, he lays out a number of policy positions that are a departure from the status quo.

A detailed list of what we know about Obama's likely changes in food policy follows, read the whole post here: What does an Obama win mean for the U.S. food supply? (Ethicurean)

Obama Grabs Headlines - November 5, 2008

Kirsten Anderson says that this baby pygmy hippopotamus is "ridiculously cute." I agree. Named Monifa, it lives at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia. (via Cute Overload)

Just a few short hours ago, our fiendish friends at Billboard Liberation Front helped Wachovia Bank improve the messaging on a billboard in San Francisco's Mission District. From the BLF's press release:

This campaign emphasizes the silver lining in the economic storm front now threatening to swamp our economy as well as our individual fiscal inner tubes.

“The calamitous decline in the value of all investments and the impending total collapse of the dollar will render the true value of the average savings account or investment portfolio roughly equal to a bucket of warm piss," noted Thomas J. Wurtz, CFO of Wachovia. Dr. John Silvia, Managing Director and Chief Economist noted: “After that golden shower we got from Golden West, we decided to fight fire with fire and start bailing for our clients and stockholders, mixed metaphors notwithstanding.”

Billboard Liberation Front and Wachovia Bank

Yesterday, I posted about psychopathy, a post that gave commenter Jack the willies, leading him to demand a cute cat video chaser. He suggested the oeuvre of Maru, an overweight male Scottish Fold residing in Japan who has a thing for putting himself into things.

Prepare yourself for the awesomeness that is Maru in hot cat-in-box action.

Apparently, Maru is huge in Japan.

Don't try this one at home, people.

Related: Maru's blog. Thanks, Jack!

My friend Joe Hutsko contacted with the intriguing offer to serialize his novel, The Deal, on Boing Boing. I jumped at the chance. I read The Deal when it first came out in 1999 and loved the thrilling story about a Apple-like company's undertaking to create an iPhone-like device.

Here's a link to Chapter 23 as a PDF or a text file. (Here's chapter 1 and an introduction to the book, and here are the previous chapters)

To buy a paperback copy of the book, visit JOEyGADGET or purchase directly from Amazon.

I'm typing this post from backstage at the 2008 Web 2.0 Summit where Rebecca McKinnon and Isaac Mao are delivering their presentations right now. Mr. Al Gore is standing a few feet away here, with Joel Hyatt, both co-founders of Current. Mr. Gore is very graciously accommodating a flood of autograph requests, and he will be taking the stage at 4:30. The joint is filling up in anticipation of his speech. I've been in and out of sessions here for the past three days, and there's been great stuff nonstop. Two of my favorite sessions so far are embedded here, and there's much more online. Above, Lawrence Lessig, and below, Kevin Kelly. Check 'em out!

BTW, I just asked Mr. Gore if he's really the guy behind this Twitter account. He is, and he tweets his own tweets. And that, my friends, is one of many reasons why the man is our hero. His speech will be online later. Link to archive of 2008 Web 2.0 Summit videos.

UPDATE: Below, A snapshot from BB pal Brent Marcus at Current, who explains, "I thought this was a really cool photo of Al Gore talking to Kevin Rose yesterday. The interview is on tonight at 10."

The above depicts Photoshop if it existed in the physical world instead of in software. Brownlee has the details over at Boing Boing Gadgets, where you can also post comments on it! "Photoshop interface rendered in real-world objects"

Our anonymous prankster pals in the Billboard Liberation Front (BLF) will make a rare public appearance at UC Berkeley tomorrow for the Takeovers & Makeovers conference exploring "artistic appropriation, fair use, and copyright in the digital age." The BLF will take the stage at 2:15 for a presentation titled "Media Bandidtry in the Digital Age." The entire conference, which started today, looks fascinating. Takeovers & Makeovers conference (Berkeley Center for New Media), "He who steals my artwork steals... what, exactly?" (Berkeleyan)

Previously on BB:
• BBtv: Google and China's "Great Firewall": Fun with the BLF
• Billboard Liberation Front vs. ATT + NSA
• Billboard Liberation Front: video of AT&T hit<

This massive salmon carcass was found last week near Anderson, California. It's 4 1/2 feet long and weighed around 85 pounds. Loren Coleman has more on giant salmon over at Cryptomundo.
Giant Salmon Photo

Phenomenal pop surrealist Andrew Brandou has a new show of vibrant, psychedelic, mind-bending paintings opening tonight at Perihelion Arts in Phoenix, Arizona. The Brandou exhibition is accompanied by a group show by members of the Art Dorks Collective, whose work I've posted about previously. Andrew Brandou and Art Dorks Collective at Perihelion Arts

Previously on BB:
• Andrew Brandou: new paintings
• Andrew Brandou: Jonestown Paintings
• Andrew Brandou writes about his Jonestown Paintings
• Art Dorks Collective show at Thinkspace in Los Angeles

A scapular art dress created by artist Rachel Wright, available on Etsy for $900.

This piece is called “Scapular” because of the wing-like velvet shoulder blades that grace the back. The slip is a rayon slip probably from the 50’s that I dyed a scarlet red. I then used a variety of different fabrics for the appliqué: velvet, silk for the many petaled breast & kidney, a recycled sari for the flower-heart, recycled leather for the tentacles on the bottom, and moiré silk for the vertebrae.

Related: "The Visible Woman Stalks the Catwalk." (Via Trend de la Creme.)

I'm happy to discover that one of my favorite art books, As I See by the late Boris Artzybasheff, is back in print, once again. Boris Artzybasheff was a prolific magazine and advertising illustrator in the first half of the 20th Century. His specialty was anthropomorphic machines, such as sneering torpedoes and smug internal combustion engines.

(See the many previous posts about Artzybasheff on Boing Boing here)

As I See

The New Yorker has an interesting article by John Seabrook about researchers who study the brains of psychopaths: "Suffering Souls."

The scanner was housed in a tractor-trailer parked behind the prison’s I.D. center. We followed a correctional officer through an internal courtyard to the rehab wing, which consisted of a large common area surrounded by two-man cells. The prisoners were standing at attention outside their cells, some holding mops and brooms. I entered a vacant cell and saw the occupant’s brain, a grainy black-and-white image on a piece of a paper, its edges curling, tacked up over the desk.

Then we walked through the common room and out a door at the other end, passing under a large poster with lines that read, “I am here because there is no refuge, finally, from myself.” The officer led us along a corridor of offices in which students from the University of New Mexico, where [cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Kent] Kiehl is on the faculty, conduct psychopathy interviews and also counsel participants in the drug-treatment program. Carla Harenski, one of Kiehl’s postdocs, was interviewing a beefy guy with a tattoo on his neck. Her office, like those of all the researchers in the lab, is equipped with a button she can press to call for help if an interview gets out of hand.

In order to distinguish psychopaths from non-psychopaths among the Western volunteers, Kiehl and his students use the revised version of the Psychopathy Checklist, or PCL-R, a twenty-item diagnostic instrument created by Robert Hare, a Canadian psychologist, based on his long experience in working with psychopaths in prisons. Kiehl was taught to use the checklist by Hare himself, under whom he earned his doctorate, at the University of British Columbia. Researchers interview an inmate for up to three hours, and compare the inmate’s statements against what is known of his record and his personal history. The interviewer “scores” the subject on each of the twenty items—parasitic life style, pathological lying, conning, proneness to boredom, shallow emotions, lack of empathy, poor impulse control, promiscuity, irresponsibility, record of juvenile delinquency, and criminal versatility, among other tendencies—with zero, one, or two, depending on how pronounced that trait is. Most researchers agree that anyone who scores thirty or higher on the PCL-R is considered to be a psychopath. Kiehl says, “Someone who scores a thirty-five, a thirty-six, they are just different. You say to yourself, ‘Aha, here you are. You are why I do this.’ ”

Harenski recently interviewed a Western inmate who scored a 38.9. “He had killed his girlfriend because he thought she was cheating on him,” she told me. “He was so charming about telling it that I found it hard not to fall into laughing along in surprise, even when he was describing awful things.” Harenski, who is thirty, did not experience the involuntary skin-crawling sensation that, according to a survey conducted by the psychologists Reid and M. J. Meloy, one in three mental-health and criminal-justice professionals report feeling on interviewing a psychopath; in their paper on the subject, Meloy and Meloy speculate that this reaction may be an ancient intraspecies predator-response system. “I was just excited,” Harenski continued. “I was saying to myself, ‘Wow. I found a real one.’ ”

"Suffering Souls." (Image credit: John Ritter.)

Fellow named Chad Kimball calls the Chicago police, the city clerk, and the legal department to find out if he can raise chickens in the city. No one really seems to know.

Does My City Allow Me to Raise Chickens? (Via Homegrown Evolution)

From Scott Beale's Laughing Squid blog: "Obama for America campaign photographer David Katz shot some wonderful behind the scenes photos of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and their families watching the election results come in from their hotel room in Chicago." Flickr set of behind the scenes photos of Obama watching election results

Coop says: "Our pal Aaron Grote built this crazy thing from the rusty haunches of a '59 Plymouth. (He's already got another one in the works!) Not only is the car cool, the auction text is pretty funny, too."

Motor is a 392 Hemi, it runs and drives great and starts easily since my pals at Harrell Mfg in Rockford, IL (who will soon be making the famous Harrell heads and intakes again) took it and got it tuned in for me. It has a tubo 400 Tranny built by Midtown transmission in Eau Claire, WI. Brand New Johns Industries Posi 9 inch with their Buick style drums that I had polished (not covers) hung with adjustable coil overs and polished stainless hair pins. The front end is a chrome drilled and dropped I beam from Pete and Jakes with Wilwood discs hidden inside Obrien truckers Buick drums and backing plates. If you need to know more read the Rod and Custom magazine article. It wouldn't matter what I say about the car anyway because some goof will most certainly e-mail me without reading it anyway. Almost every nut and bolt is either chromed or polished stainless. I spent a small fortune on this car so don't call me up and expect me to end the auction early for half what I spent on the car. I don't HAVE to sell it. I don't believe all of this talk about a recession. I am coming out of the biggest recession I have ever seen after building this thing!! I can assure you though, if it sells I promise to blow most of the money on more stupid car stuff! I have contemplated moving into a bigger trailer though, and maybe one with a bon-a-fide crawlspace and foundation under it. That would make me a bit hit with all of my friends come tornado season! I would also be interested in taking partial payment in the form of Pre-war Coupe or truck projects, value to be determined before the end of the auction. I like Zephyrs, 32's, 33's, 34's, and 36's I am also interested in vintage motor bikes. I don't mind selling overseas either, but the car is being sold as is, where is and I don't want to have to transport it. Check out my other auctions and improve your lousy wardrobe with a spiffy new T-shirt!

Awesome roth-style bubbletop custom hot rod for sale

On Dinosaurs and Robots, Mister Jalopy posts and comments on a whole bunch of his favorite videos from MTV's video archive.

Here's a small sample of Jalopy's picks:

MTV was the internet of the 1980s. It was the connection from our mundane suburban lives to the urbane sophisticated world that we imagined joining. Now everybody knows everything and every trend is overexposed to the point of lifelessness, but MTV played an important role as it gave us a window into subcultures that meant the world to us. True, D+R is about inspired objects, but we sometimes diverge to consider the exceptional whatever the form. The MTV offering is not as broad as YouTube, but the quality, searching and metadata quality make it worthwhile. The MTV embedding function is a bit of a stinker. If you embed, strip off all html after the ending embed tag.

Bauhaus - Ziggy Stardust

At the time, Bauhaus was skewered by the British press for doing a light cover of a classic Bowie song to rocket up the charts. Indeed, it was, and remained, their greatest commercial success, but I loved it then and I love it now. Peter Murphy brings a growling, sleazy sneer that is completely successful.



Digital Underground - Humpty Dance

He likes his oatmeal lumpy.



Massive Attack - Teardrop

Amazing work by Gondry. Transcendent song.

Many more videos and commentary here: Ladies and Gentleman, The MTV Music Video Archive

"The Morning After," copyright Zina Saunders 2008, from The Party's Over, a "hilariously scathing visual chronicle of the McCain/Palin presidential campaign. (Via This Isn't Happiness.)

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets, we looked at a nifty little traffic loop sensor activator that lets bicyclists get their fair place on the road, and rounded up the best speakers in every class.

An anti-static keychain prevents you from turning into a human tesla coil, while a Darth Vader toaster proves the divinity of Darth Vader.

You may think you can shop at Circuit City's liquidated stores for a good deal on HDTVs: you can't. But you can soothe a tattered soul with a beautiful ocarina solo on your iPhone.

We looked at motorcycles made of watch parts and what PhotoShop's interface would look like in the real world. Ericsson has insanely lofty plans for mobile phones, an electric bullet train will carry 100 million Californian passengers a year by 2030, a buttonless Xbox 360 controller improves your FPS gaming, and Windows 7 comes in 2009;

And Nintendo's new DSi handheld? Comes with a virtual budgie.

Link

Serve Your Country Food is a fascinating project to illuminate the growing movement of young farmers in the United States The creators encourage the use of data visualizations and maps (soil maps, agricultural areas, superfund sites, etc.) to find opportunities and identify challenges. The overall aim is to encourage "thousands of new growers of fruits, nuts, vegetables, grains, dairy, and livestock to transform the landscape of sprawling development and corporate control into a dignified, livable, and culturally rich mosaic of ecological farming." It makes me want to start a vegetable garden. Seriously. From Serve Your Country Food:

The young farmers now emerging onto the land seek to reclaim, restore, and resettle the deserted rural towns of America. We are similarly poised to revive the fabric of urban life with markets, gardens, bees, corn patches and waterways. Motivated by a force of intention that cannot be rationalized economically, with lives driven by an instinct for direct action and stewardship that honors the planet, people, and place, we are the allies of every American. Our instincts are emboldened by the mercury shatter of dew on the broccoli plants at dawn, by the roar of pollinators in a flowering crop of buckwheat, and by the river of neighbors streaming through the farm-gate clamoring for “real” tomatoes and happy chickens. The hands of young farmers on the land seek to push forward an agenda of sustainability on a human scale.

Serve Your Country Food (Thanks, Mike Liebhold!)

Journalist Radley Balko makes fun of the Office of National Drug Control Policy's new anti-pot disinformation campaign, which "suggest that drug users can look forward to a career as a 'burrito taster,' a 'couch security guard,' or 'remote control operator.'

Balko calls it "an incredibly lame campaign, [which] reeks of stodgy wonks making a desperate attempt to look hip."

Here’s my challenge to Agitator readers, bloggers, and others: In this comments thread, let’s compile a master list of admitted pot smokers—current or former—who not only haven’t ended up as heroin junkies or burnouts, but have gone on to lead successful lives. If the person is famous, include a link. But feel free to add yourselves and what you do now, too, if you fit the criteria. School teacher? Cop? Stay at home mom? Grad student? Count yourself in. You can leave out your name if you like. Or include it. Either way.

I’ll get it started:

Barack Obama, president-elect. Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the U.S. John Kerry, U.S. Senator and 2004 Democratic nominee for president. John Edwards, multi-millionaire, former U.S. Senator, and 2004 Democratic nominee for vice president. Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, 2008 Republican nominee for vice president. British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, and and Chancellor Alistair Darling. Josh Howard, NBA all-star. New York Governor David Paterson. Former Vice President, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Oscar winner Al Gore. Former Sen. Bill Bradley, who smoked while playing professional basketball. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and former New York Governor George Pataki. Billionaire and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Help Radley add to the list of successful potheads: Successful Pot Smokers: Let’s Make a List

A plain ol' stick was entered into the National Toy Hall of Fame yesterday. It joins the kite, Mr. Potato Head, Crayola crayons, the Atari 2600, LEGO, and several dozen other toy greats. Also added this year are the baby doll and the skateboard. From the Associated Press:

Curators said the stick was a special addition in the spirit of a 2005 inductee, the cardboard box. They praised its all-purpose, no-cost, recreational qualities, noting its ability to serve either as raw material or an appendage transformed in myriad ways by a child's creativity.

"It's very open-ended, all-natural, the perfect price -- there aren't any rules or instructions for its use," said Christopher Bensch, the museum's curator of collections. "It can be a Wild West horse, a medieval knight's sword, a boat on a stream or a slingshot with a rubber band. ... No snowman is complete without a couple of stick arms, and every campfire needs a stick for toasting marshmallows.

"This toy is so fantastic that it's not just for humans anymore. You can find otters, chimps and dogs -- especially dogs -- playing with it."

"Stick, skateboard, Baby Doll enter Toy Hall of Fame"

Snip from a Salon opinion piece by Michael Lind, which argues that Obama's victory marks "the beginning of a new era in American history," and that such eras are sparked by technological change.

[W]hat causes these cycles of reform and backlash in American politics? I believe they are linked indirectly to stages of technological and economic development. Lincoln's Second American Republic marked a transition from an agrarian economy to one based on the technologies of the first industrial revolution -- coal-fired steam engines and railroads. Roosevelt's Third American Republic was built with the tools of the second industrial revolution -- electricity and internal combustion engines. It remains to be seen what energy sources -- nuclear? Solar? Clean coal? -- and what technologies -- nanotechnology? Photonics? Biotech-- will be the basis of the next American economy. (Note: I'm talking about the material, real-world manufacturing and utility economy, not the illusory "information economy" beloved of globalization enthusiasts in the 1990s, who pretended that deindustrialization by outsourcing was a higher state of industrialism.)

Naturally, the Americans alive during the founding of new American republics have other issues on their minds. The Civil War was fought over slavery, not steam engines, and the New Deal, for all of FDR's commitment to nationwide electrical power fed by hydroelectric dam projects, was animated by a vision of social justice. The broad outlines of technological and economic change merely provide the frame for the picture; the details depend on the groups that emerge victorious in political battles.

That is why it is too early to predict the outline of the Fourth American Republic. Its shape depends on the outcomes of the debates and struggles of the next generation. But it is possible to speculate about its life span. If the pattern of history holds, the Fourth Republic of the United States will last for roughly 72 years, from 2004 (or, if you like, 2008) to 2076. And if the pattern of the past holds, we will see a period of Hamiltonian centralization and reform between now and 2040, followed by an approximately 36-year long Jeffersonian backlash motivated by ideals of libertarianism and decentralization.

Obama and the dawn of the Fourth Republic (Salon)

Behold Andy Martin's stop motion video for Paul Steel's "Honkin' (On My Crack Pipe)." Now, I will never be able to get this song out of my head. (See also: Tony Oursler.) Note: This video contains bad words. (Via Videos.antville.org.)

A still from a new high-tech production of Berlioz's "Damnation de Faust," premiering this weekend at the Met. An "interactive opera," the production synthesizes performers and sets through technology: flocks of digital birds fly in sync with an aria, video grass parts its blades for oncoming soldiers, high-def water reflects a passing boat, a JumboTron mirrors a singer's love song in flames.

To bolster his argument that the technology is appropriate, [director Robert] Lepage cites Berlioz’s epoch, a time of technological innovations like photography and electricity. “All these ideas were around,” he said. “They believed these things were modern alchemy.”

"Techno-Alchemy at the Opera," audio slideshow. (Photo credit: Sara Krulwich.)

Among the fun folks who joined us for last night's BB/BBtv/Laughing Squid/NextNewNetworks/Metblogs Drinkup in San Francisco was Tcritic founder Karl Long.

He put together the amazing "prez dispenser" t-shirt previously blogged on Laughing Squid. Karl explains that this shirt was "based on a linocut print from local artist Eric Rewitzer who does some wonderful prints." Linocut, shown above at left.

I also dig the "Under New Management" shirt Karl pointed us to, from Print Liberation, shown above right.

totem destroyer
spot the difference
memory checker
split words
coign of vantage
open doors
daymare town

previously on web zen:
mind games zen

Permalink for this edition. Web Zen is created and curated by Frank Davis, and re-posted here on Boing Boing with his kind permission. Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)

Image above: One of 12 full-page engravings from The Anatomy of the Brain Explained in a Series of Engravings, by Charles Bell (1802). (via neurophilosophy.)

Still wrapping my head around this, but it sure is interesting at first glance -- in part because of the speed in which it was launched. Change.gov is a website launched by the Obama team's Presidential Transition Project which documents the transition into power and solicits ideas from the public. Change.gov (Thanks, Nate Westheimer)

UK photographer Nick Knight's latest surreal SHOWstudio online fashion film is "Fantasia," "a mesmerising, full-throttle trip around the most sensational sartorial propositions of the past ten years," including Alexander McQueen's football fetishisms and Hussein Chalayan's remote-controlled dress.

Related:

Hussein Chalayan: future couture

Hussein Chalayan's awesome animatronic fashion

Tech couture roundup: Chalayan, McQueen, android beauty

Hussein Chalayan's latest tech couture is lovely.

Hussein Chalayan and Kristin Baker

Jim Wirth of OpenRoad.TV has been a passionate metal detectorist ever since he was a kid. Jim wrote to me:

I hang out on a website called Treasurenet.com, which has forums all related to metal detecting. One of the forums (which I've used myself a number of times) is the "What is it?" forum, where people can post a picture and description of something they've found metal detecting yet have no idea what it is or what it was used for. There is a thread on this forum that I thought would interest you and your readers. Who knows, maybe you or one of your readers might know what this item is...

Metal detectorist's mysterious find

My maker pal Jon Sarriugarte and his daughter Zolie made homemade butter. Jon's short post and photos are inspiring! From Jon's Fire And Art blog:

My local homeless friend Hank found this great Daisy Churn #4 for me a few weeks back. With the leftover cream from the birthday pies we made last week and a copy of Joy of Cooking from 1964 we got to work. Right away we new we were in for the long haul when we read “how much slower the process was in threatening or stormy weather”. We looked outside and saw it was still raining.

Homemade butter (Thanks, Shawn Connally!)

The incredible painter Audrey Kawasaki has curated a group show of new art (including her own work) opening Friday night at Thinkspace in Los Angeles. The mindblowing exhibition includes pieces by Stella Im Hultberg, Amy Sol, Brandi Milne, Travis Louie, Kukula, and many more. Seen above, Kawasaki's "Hush" (17" x 11", oil, graphite, and colored pencil on wood). Titled "The Drawing Room," the show runs until November 29. All of the work is also viewable online. The Drawing Room (online gallery), The Drawing Room (press release)

UPDATE: Thinkspace's Andrew Hosner points out that two limited edition Audrey Kawsaki prints will also be available to those who can make the show in person. Only 200 of each are available and they're just $50 each, so I'd imagine they'll go rather quickly! Audrey Kawsaki's Drawing Room prints

The New York Times reports New York governor turned Luv Gov Eliot Spitzer won't be charged for his part in the call girl scandal that ended his political career.

On March 6, 2008, this office announced the filing of criminal charges related to an international prostitution ring known as the Emperors Club V.I.P. The investigation which led to those charges began when this Office learned of payments made in a questionable manner by former Governor Spitzer to a bank account in the name “QAT Consulting.” After the investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Division, the office determined that the QAT Consulting account and a similar account at another financial institution had been used to launder more than $1 million worth of criminal proceeds derived from the Emperors Club V.I.P.’s prostitution business.

Eliot Spitzer has acknowledged to this Office that he was a client of, and made payments to, the Emperors Club V.I.P. Our investigation has shown that on multiple occasions, Mr. Spitzer arranged for women to travel from one state to another state to engage in prostitution. After a thorough investigation, this Office has uncovered no evidence of misuse of public or campaign funds. In addition, we have determined that there is insufficient evidence to bring charges against Mr. Spitzer for any offense relating to the withdrawal of funds for, and his payments to, the Emperors Club V.I.P.

In light of the policy of the Department of Justice with respect to prostitution offenses and the longstanding practice of this office, as well as Mr. Spitzer’s acceptance of responsibility for his conduct, we have concluded that the public interest would not be further advanced by filing criminal charges in this matter.

In a statement, Spitzer responds:

I understand the office of the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York has decided that it will not bring criminal charges against me. I appreciate the impartiality and thoroughness of the investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office, and I acknowledge and accept responsibility for the conduct it disclosed.

I resigned my position as governor because I recognized that conduct was unworthy of an elected official. I once again apologize for my actions, and for the pain and disappointment those actions caused my family and the many people who supported me during my career in public life.

I asked my friend Debauchette, a blogger and ex-courtesan, for her thoughts on the news. She writes:

It's definitely annoying.

I suppose my immediate response is that it seems like a pretty typical case of the john being released while the prostitute, or in this case, the agency, gets punished. It's sad to think that Emperors would have been left alone if it hadn't been for Spitzer. He's the one they were after, and now he gets off while the agency owners get god knows what kind of punishment. Put this within the larger context that Spitzer saw prostitutes while actively seeking their imprisonment, and that Emperors was only attending to his requests, and the whole mess strikes me as a distortion of justice and a sickening waste of resources. But that's nothing new.

Related: "Letters from Johns."

(Image credit: Barbara Kruger's award-winning cover for New York Magazine.)

I like tumblelogs. Do you? I tumble myself. But my favorite tumblelog is Peter Nidzgorski's This Isn't Happiness. It's mostly images, sometimes quotes or words or videos or music, and the one thing I can say for sure about it in sum total is that it's always beautiful, whether the subject is politics or poverty, women or zombies, life or death. Also, you may want to check out Nevver, where Nidzgorski mashes movie stills and MP3's daily to delightful effect. (Photo credit: Raul Gutierrez, original photo, Flickr stream.)

My friend Eric Spitznagel took on the Bigfoot beat for Vanity Fair and filed: "Everything's Bigfoot in Texas." From the Texas Bigfoot Conference in Jefferson, Texas, he reports:

Drawing on interviews with dozens of eye-witnesses, [Sasquatch expert Dr. Henner] Fahrenbach went on to say that Bigfoot’s diet is rich in mussels, clams, peacocks, and the “hindquarter” of deer. He insisted that Bigfoots enjoy wrestling, tickle fights, and, most surprisingly, gangbangs. He assured us that even a horny Sasquatch has an impeccable sense of orgy etiquette.

“When an especially large male came onto the scene,” Fahrenbach said, describing a sexual pileup involving one willing female and lots of dudes, “he didn’t try to buck the line but simply stood there and took his turn in good time.”

In the beginning of his lecture, there was some nervous giggling from those in the audience. After a while, they just stared at Fahrenbach, a few with jaws agape. Somewhere in the back row, a woman turned to her husband and whispered, “I can’t tell if he’s kidding.”

It’s been a rough few months for Bigfoot true believers.

"Everything's Bigfoot in Texas." (Illustration credit: John Hogan.)

Newsweek is publishing a seven-part "Secrets of the 2008 Campaign" series, which includes reports that the computer networks of both the Obama and McCain campaigns were compromised in a complex systems attack before the election. A "serious amount of files" were downloaded from the Obama campaign's network, according to the piece. Here's the link to "Hackers and Spending Sprees." Snip:

At the Obama headquarters in midsummer, technology experts detected what they initially thought was a computer virus—a case of "phishing," a form of hacking often employed to steal passwords or credit-card numbers. But by the next day, both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system." The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: "You have a real problem ... and you have to deal with it." The Feds told Obama's aides in late August that the McCain campaign's computer system had been similarly compromised. A top McCain official confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the campaign's computer system had been hacked and that the FBI had become involved.

Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps' policy positions—information that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration. The Feds assured the Obama team that it had not been hacked by its political opponents. (Obama technical experts later speculated that the hackers were Russian or Chinese.) A security firm retained by the Obama campaign took steps to secure its computer system and end the intrusion. White House and FBI officials had no comment earlier this week.

And in related news: Palin's couture shopping spree was apparently far more extensive and expensive than previously reported, and she apparently has a compulsive spending problem. Snip:

One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards.

Secrets of the 2008 Campaign: Highlights (Newsweek)

A new video from Beck for "Gamma Ray," starring Chloë Sevigny and a lot of groovy visuals. Rex sez: "Pretend it's 1995 again." Not recommended for those of you who are on acid. (Via Some Notes on Napkins.)

From the BFI National Film archive, via YouTube:

"Tibetan Scenes was made by Tsien-Lien Shen in the early 1940s - he was resident Chinese Commissioner in Lhasa from 1942-47. The colour film records many of the ceremonial events that took place in Lhasa, including the New Year ceremonies, and Shen himself appears in the film. There is also evidence of the presence of the Chinese in Lhasa.

Although the majority of the film focuses on Tibetan ceremonies, there are some invaluable scenes capturing everyday life in Lhasa, as monks, porters, market stall sellers and the occasional yak compete for space."

Another related film from the same archive:

"This film was shot by Sir Basil Gould who succeeded Derek Williamson as Political Officer of Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet in 1935. His films record two visits to Lhasa. The first, Lhasa (1936), shows his Diplomatic Mission to the Tibetan capital. His cameraman Frederick Spencer Chapman was commissioned by the BFI in 1937 to write an article for Sight and Sound magazine describing that visit ("Tibetan Horizon"). The film features an intriguing sequence of Tibetan women playing darts.

And more:

These extraordinary scenes were filmed in Tibet in the 1940s and include shots of the current Dalai Lama (then still a very young boy) and his family. The opening scenes show the Dalai Lama's parents and siblings, and a procession of high-ranking men and women. This is followed by a clip of a procession with the Dalai Lama in a golden palanquin, his presence indicated by the peacock feather umbrella being carried alongside. The final scenes, in contrast, show ordinary children dancing and ice-skating in Lhasa."

(Thanks, Clayton Cubitt)

Photographer Dan Tobin Smith exploded, and photographed, teddy bears for the latest issue of Kilimanjaro magazine. Creative Review posted a feature about the magazine - tagline: "art, love, and everyday life." The online feature also includes a video of one of the bears going boom. Kilimanjaro: Teddy Killers

On the day before Election Day, the NYT ran an editorial about eleventh-hour scrambling by Bush and aides to alter rules and regulations on the environment, civil liberties, abortion rights, and other issues. There are 75 days remaining for the Bush presidency, and they're evidently hard at work on change, too. Snip:

CIVIL LIBERTIES We don’t know all of the ways that the administration has violated Americans’ rights in the name of fighting terrorism. Last month, Attorney General Michael Mukasey rushed out new guidelines for the F.B.I. that permit agents to use chillingly intrusive techniques to collect information on Americans even where there is no evidence of wrongdoing.

Agents will be allowed to use informants to infiltrate lawful groups, engage in prolonged physical surveillance and lie about their identity while questioning a subject’s neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends. The changes also give the F.B.I. — which has a long history of spying on civil rights groups and others — expanded latitude to use these techniques on people identified by racial, ethnic and religious background.

The administration showed further disdain for Americans’ privacy rights and for Congress’s power by making clear that it will ignore a provision in the legislation that established the Department of Homeland Security. The law requires the department’s privacy officer to account annually for any activity that could affect Americans’ privacy — and clearly stipulates that the report cannot be edited by any other officials at the department or the White House.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has now released a memo asserting that the law “does not prohibit” officials from homeland security or the White House from reviewing the report. The memo then argues that since the law allows the officials to review the report, it would be unconstitutional to stop them from changing it. George Orwell couldn’t have done better.

So Little Time, So Much Damage (New York Times)

Herpe, the unfortunately-named but very talented "Obama Dog." Video Link. (thanks, Brandon Elkins)

Sheesh, here I was bragging all over the place about Boing Boing's amazing guestbloggers -- most notably, our current star, Susannah Breslin -- and the guys at Gizmodo have to one-up us over here. NASA's frickin' Mars Lander is guestblogging over there. Brian Lam says the Phoenix Mars Lander is blogging about its "last days on Mars, recalling its life and bravely facing impending death." Gah! Brilliant.

Glen Jackson Taylor of Core77 visted NASA to profile the designers of the next manned lunar rover.

Evan Twyford and Carl Conlee are two of three industrial designers working in NASA's Habitability Design Center (HDC), and in just over 2 years they have transitioned the department from one that dealt only with small isolated ergonomic projects to working on arguably the most exciting project at NASA today—a next generation pressurized lunar rover. The thing is, NASA doesn't actually have an industrial design department. They don't even have a design department. Not technically, anyway...

Designing for Space: Core77 visits NASA's Industrial Design Team

Stephen Worth says:

Today, we posted more amazing "Cappiana" from the collection of cartoonist, Mike Fontanelli at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, including...

• Al Capp's infamous "Jack Jawbreaker" story -- a devastating satire of the notorious exploitation of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster by DC Comics.

• More than a dozen rare Wildroot Cream-Oil strips, as well as original artwork and Nat King Cole's version of the jingle.

• Two complete Fearless Fosdick stories, including Capp's over-the-top masterpiece of surreal violence, "The Case of the Chippendale Chair (or Kiss The Blood Off My Springs)"

Capp's sense of humor was decades ahead of its time, predating the sort of sick humor that is so popular in comics and cartoons today. It's amazing what he got away with in "family newspapers" during the 50s!

CAPPtivating Heroes: Jack Jawbreaker and Fearless Fosdick Fight Crime

Here's a chart from the Marijuana Policy Project that summarizes the nine (out of 10) marijuana-related ballot initiatives around the country that passed in yesterday's election, and the one bad initiative that was defeated. The margins were pretty big, too.

Massachusetts Question 2: Remove the threat of arrest or jail for possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, replacing it with a $100 fine, which could be paid through the mail without lawyers or court appearances, just like a speeding ticket. WIN 65%-35%

Chart of marijuana-related ballot initiatives for 2008: big wins

A really great photograph, via Boston.com. Does anyone have photog credit info? Link to original photo series, a collection of portraits of our president-elect (who, as the shot demonstrates, sometimes reads the Wall Street Journal). Here's the info on this photograph:

US Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama shares a fist bump with Ethan Gibbs, the five year-old son of campaign communication director Robert Gibbs, upon disembarking from his campaign plane at Dulles airport in Chantilly, Virgina, on October 22, 2008. (EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images) #

(via @SdGeek)

I'm Learning to Share was kind enough to share this delightful and gentle version of the Kingston Trio's 1959 hit folk song, M.T.A., by French singer Eileen Grayam.

There's a dearth of information out there regarding 'Eileen Grayam' and The Storytellers, but one possible theory suggests that this Eileen could be the same American-born yé-yé girl Eileen who recorded in France in the 1960's and had a hit with her French-language version of Nancy Sinatra's 'These Boots Were Made For Walking' in 1966.

'Charlie on the M.T.A.' in French: Eileen Grayam - Le Metro de Boston b/w Michel

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Nick Reynolds, RIP

Hope you'll join us in SF if you're in town tonight. Details here, and more here. Thanks Scott Beale! For Web 2.0 conference participants who are attending the dinner/auction at the Palace Hotel tonight: we'll be up late with the Drinkup, so just cmon by when Web 2 wraps up.

Do people with Asperger Syndrome understand intentional actions in a different way than people without Asperger Syndrome? Edouard Machery, a philosopher of psychology and an experimental philosopher in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, says they do:

Consider the following probes:

The Free-Cup Case
Joe was feeling quite dehydrated, so he stopped by the local smoothie shop to buy the largest sized drink available. Before ordering, the cashier told him that if he bought a Mega-Sized Smoothie he would get it in a special commemorative cup. Joe replied, ‘I don't care about a commemorative cup, I just want the biggest smoothie you have.' Sure enough, Joe received the Mega-Sized Smoothie in a commemorative cup. Did Joe intentionally obtain the commemorative cup?

The Extra-Dollar Case
Joe was feeling quite dehydrated, so he stopped by the local smoothie shop to buy the largest sized drink available. Before ordering, the cashier told him that the Mega-Sized Smoothies were now one dollar more than they used to be. Joe replied, ‘I don't care if I have to pay one dollar more, I just want the biggest smoothie you have.' Sure enough, Joe received the Mega-Sized Smoothie and paid one dollar more for it. Did Joe intentionally pay one dollar more?

You surely think that paying an extra dollar was intentional, while getting the commemorative cup was not. So do most people (Machery, 2008).

But Tiziana Zalla and I have found that if you had Asperger Syndrome, a mild form of autism, your judgments would be very different: You would judge that paying an extra-dollar was not intentional, just like getting the commemorative cup (Zalla and Machery ms).

Intentional action and Asperger Syndrome